










Class .P_Z.3> 

Book 

Copyright]^? 


COPVRICHT DEPOSIT. 







. ■ . '■ '.'r^' " • . ',-. • '- - '» :' , ' • '■ ■> •' ., 

■ . / ,\r.. ' r , -V ,;j;« -w ■',...'5^'> • ‘XrA^U<4tT.-.\ 

■j.-'r--. , . 



t . v«K^ * /'7 ^ ^ 

• ^ . ‘ ^ ^ L 


’ -r , V. : ^ S V‘. 

.‘ ".vf/'.’.O . 

■> * ' ■ '‘'j 

. • ‘ • . . I 

• I f 






V^y ■ ' 


\ M V. 

r\* 



1 • « 


V* 

f.*'. '. ■ 

^y. 




• "7 ' * r • .f ’1<1P 

"V- ' ■ 

. :r , ^ * . \ r. ^ > 

I - i"" • ^ > 


* gJ^S* 


V ♦ I 






# t 


^:r'''‘‘:v - 

tT/.''* *'* ’ • 


^ f 


% %. 


9 , 

^ • 


tvVtv:.-, ' V- 


a 


9 

: < ‘ 


M 


« 




‘ t 


« 1 
4 



A 


4 « 


4 % 


I » 

f 


Ai - ' ' 








HI 

fy* . 'V- 


A, w. 



.rz^iimL_^F^ • % • i. 


t' i%^':iP . » 


MISTRESS HETTY 






MISTRESS HETTY 

/ 

By CHAUNCEY C HOTCHKISS 

Author of “ For a Lady Brave,” “ Betsy Ross,” “ 
Defiance of the King,” “ The Strength 
of the Weak,” Etc> 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 


THE UlBRARV OF 

CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Recsiveo 

AUG. 21 1902 

COPVUHIHT BNTHV 

/9c>2^ 

CLASS Q^XXa No. 

<S7<^ 
corv B. 


Copyright, 1902, 

STREET & SMITH. 


Mistress Hetty, 


To 

William H. Thomas, 

with the affectionate regard of the author, 
this volume is dedicated. 


. w Si'-. 'r' • 

.<\ .S\' *■ 

V r--i^0B6MSk'.<s/‘^XP .*'■ 



• ./ 

X • 


r- ■■: 


♦ » 




■ .• n<.'' 


f« ''. ‘t ■ < > -' *■•. ,( ‘ , A-" .jv/ _ ^ ._TL .1 > • W • I S ,* y;. W •, 4.Y1? 


U«i')* M * i' ' , . ,*' -j 


r k 


i» wr Vvr. 





> • 





• • ‘ r / 

•/»T‘ .V- 

• I M ^ • 




• i/ 


V'j 


I . 




,« « 


9 » ^ 




vvr 




^ ' 


S’' ,■ 


iy. 


■? • -^'v' 


• -*d' * 1 

* /. • . I 

r 


\ ' 


‘ A 


»;-'\N,' 


a U V " 


'40 


' .’ s 


t f 





' V '•■- ‘H 

':::i:>’'‘ '/ :>:»■'■ V'» ' ^ 


.■; :/«;. wv'v 








^^'l 


4 

« «• 


,■3 



P.- ' '. 


#•> 




I - . .,,,.. 

' ../ ■ r 


\ « 


A* 



1^- 


• • «« 


v; r \ 


f. 




•r 


P>M* 


'• <54v.:'‘i'' 


»• ’ t’V» 

■ < 






b *i’. V* •, ' 

• L^ - ^?T»> > » 


' \\ i 


'/ 


» * i 


V ^ ! ,» . I 


• # / ' 




4^^// ' r. 






^ -f 

ri’; 






' • % 

$ • 

N ^ • I 

S 


« 




» I 


I • 


• « 

' » 

I 


^•Vi \ ^ 

^ 1 i 


» 

•* ‘rf 


i: 


K 


S 


i f 


p* 


^ * i’Wl ** r ' ’ r - A Jtf r ' . •» ^ ’ ' ' 


I ’ 


s: 


I • 




\ * ”» 



» • 


■it , ^tzP'... 


"’'A.'"* ' ■' ' •■''>' 

■^;>vA'' • ‘"A^c-'aiWr-^' ' .‘:'v';/ r.' ■ ' 


■y"' 

K • 




> 




✓ . 


\ »' 

r 



•■/' • '■■ - 5 *^ ' ■■' *' 







V 

A 


* 

w 

if > ’V: -S’ 

t * J 

^ f '• 




CONTENTS. 


Chapter. Page. 

I. The Chairman of the Committee 9 

II. The New-Comer 17 

III. His Own Petard 27 

IV. The Attack 35 

V. Hetty Wain 43 

VI. The Searching Party 56 

VH. Mr. Talbot Marcy 59 

VHI. The Protest 65 

IX. The Secret of the House 73 

X. Bent’s Defeat 85 

XI. The Demon of Revenge 91 


Chapter. Page. 

XII. The Half Brothers 95 

XIII. The Glebe House Yard 107 

XIV. A Lost Soul 115 

, Patrice 121 

Mr. Sixty’s Mistake 


MISTRESS HETTY- 


CHAPTER I. 

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE. 

The old Oranaug Inn stood hard by the road 
leading through the ancient village of Woodbury, 
and was about the first building approached by the 
traveller from the south. It seemed, and seems to 
this day, to stand like a sentinel guarding the long, 
tree-embowered street of the town, for, as one goes 
up by the way of the Southbury road, which is over 
the old Indian trail, once leading from the Housa- 
tonic river north to Bantam, the line of demarcation 
betwixt the open country and the village is sudden 
enough to cause surprise. 

And if abrupt to-day it was far more so over a cen- 
tury ago, as, to the south, for many miles, lay a semi- 
wilderness broken only by the river and the clearings 
of the yeomanry who had chosen for their homes this 
fair valley of the Pomparaug. Like all Litchfield 


lo Mistress Hetty. 

county it is a lovely country, passing from rugged- 
ness of outline (as though nature had placed a per- 
petual scowl upon the land) to the lapping of low 
hills, soft valleys and exquisite distances, as if the 
same mighty power was begging forgiveness for its 
sometime harshness. 

With the frown of a towering height of forest-clad 
rocks on one side the smile of the wide meadows of 
the Pomparaug on the other, silent and sleeping lay 
the town of Woodbury on a night in the early spring 
of 1775. Through the length of the black street the 
Oranaug Inn was the only building showing a light 
that might prove a guide or an invitation to hospital- 
ity for the possible wayfarer. The wet March wind, 
softened on its journey from the south, yet with a 
shivering chill in it, sounded a diapason through the 
barren elms about the door, violently swung the 
creaking sign-board on its twisted iron bracket as 
though it would drive the painted image of the old 
sachem, Oranaug, from its frame, and then went 
howling up the wide highway. Great patches of sod- 
den snow showed like ghosts in the hollows and to 
the north of every obstruction, while in the lee of 
houses and where the woods were thick they wasted 
themselves in wreaths of vapor that blew away like 


The Chairman of the Committee. ii 

smoke. The rotten ice crashed under foot, and on 
the southern slopes of the roads the mud was deep 
and tenacious. 

As though in protest against the comfortable rise 
and fall of the fire, the light of which shot through the 
small panes of the coffee-room or bar of the tavern, 
the wind banged the ill-fitting doors, rattled the case- 
ments and roared down the immense chimneys like a 
veritable evil spirit. 

In common with most taverns of the day, espe- 
cially those throughout Connecticut, the bar of the 
Oranaug Inn was comfortable enough at all times, 
but doubly so on a night like this. The fire in the 
cavernous chimney threw its light on the conven- 
tional array of pewter pots and platters ranged over 
the bar, each piece winking in the rise and fall of the 
glow; while the two candles which were supposed to 
illuminate the immediate -vicinity of the “tap” well- 
nigh shivered themselves out as their flames shook in 

V 

the searching draught. The high-backed settles were 
drawn close and the table placed between them; the 
tall clock clicked with a tick that could be heard 
above the noise of the wind, and the black rafters of 
the ceiling held mysterious depths of shadow in their 


courses. 


12 


Mistress Hetty. 


In ordinary times the tavern would have been de- 
serted long since, for to the steadygoing New Eng- 
lander the hour was late. But to-night the room had 
held a sprinkling of inmates, as the post had been 
hourly expected from Hartford, the old Indian trail 
being a fairly direct route from that town to New 
York. Grave matters were afoot and every eye was 
turned toward Massachusetts Bay, where the political 
pot was boiling hard and in momentary danger of 
boiling over. As the hours waned without the ap- 
pearance of the looked-for messenger, one by one the 
sleepy farmers had withdrawn until at last there re- 
mained only Squire Strong, the chairman of the 
“Committee of Inspection,” and a few of the younger 
element of the town, held by patient expectancy and 
a desire for sensational news. 

The squire, by reason of both age and his office, 
sat in solitary state on the end of a settle, armed with 
a long pipe and a glass of spirits. Lounging on a 
small bench, somewhat removed, were three of the 
aforesaid sensation-seekers, great, strapping speci- 
mens of the rising generation, while in his own par- 
ticular chair, tipped back against the woodwork of 
the bar, with a hound lying at his feet, sat old Tobey, 
the host of the Oranaug, fast asleep, his snores keep- 


The Chairman of the Committee. 13 


ing admirable time to the swing of the clock’s long 
pendulum. 

It had been tedious waiting. The committee itself 
had given over hoping for the post, and leaving the 
chairman to represent them in case it should arrive, 
had retired to their homes and beds, and now, but for 
the wind, the clock, the snoring host and an occa- 
sional whisper among the trio on the bench, all was 
silent. 

Though his eyes were closed, the chairman was not 
asleep. This was seen in the energy with which at 
intervals he pulled at his pipe as though troubled in 
thought. ‘And the squire was troubled in thought — 
indeed, he was trying to untie the knottiest problem 
of his official life. The “Committee of Inspection and 
Observation,” picked by the town from among the 
most solid men of the valley, had been empowered 
and directed by the “High Court” at Hartford to 
weed out the royalists of the township and see to it 
that the heresy of loyalty to George HI. of England 
did not spread. The committee had done its work 
well, using star chamber methods in its proceedings, 
and without fear or favor had swung the club of its 
commission over each suspected household. Even 
Jeptha Beacon of the “holler store,” the wealthiest 


14 


Mistress Hetty. 


and most influential merchant in the colony, had 
fallen under the ban of the committee, though to the 
disgust of its worthy chairman, who had vigorously 
pressed the charge, he was acquitted of disloyalty to 
the colonies, the only thing found against him being 
the fact that he had been shrewd enough to buy all 
the salt for sale for miles about and had been hold- 
ing that indispensable commodity at an exorbitant 
figure. The most the committee could do in this case 
was to decree a certain fixed price on salt and compel 
the old gentleman to sell to all comers on specified 
days. 

This failure to convict was, to the energetic chair- 
man, a source of great annoyance, but it was a small 
matter compared with the case now confronting him. 
The Rev. Archibald Challiss, of the Episcopal church, 
had appeared in his pulpit after a short absence from 
town, and had openly prayed for the king in the face 
of his having been warned to forego that portion of 
his ritual. During the following week he could not 
be found, though the next Sunday saw him in his 
chancel, where he again not only asked the Almighty 
to bless his sovereign, but to bring confusion on the 
traitors who were trying to disrupt the kingdom. 

The town was aghast, but the then existing laws 


The Chairman of the Committee. 15 

of Connecticut forbade a minister being molested on 
the Sabbath on any pretext, and the committee’s 
hands were tied for that day. On Monday the Rev. 
Challiss seemed to have melted into thin air and had 
continued to remain invisible, though he was seen to 
enter the Glebe house, which on being searched failed 
to discover a sign of his recent presence, and its in- 
mates professed a profound ignorance of the where- 
abouts of the rector. 

It was this matter which was now disturbing the 
chairman. A stern faced man, severe — even fanatical 
— in both politics and religion, it irked him sorely to 
be thus defied by any one, especially by a representa- 
tive of the Church of England, and his usually genial 
temper was soured as he brooded over the manner 
in which both the town and the committee had been 
flouted. As it was, his present displeasure was shown 
in low mutterings and such violent puffs on his pipe 
that at times he was shrouded in a thick, blue haze. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE NEW-COMER. 

The clock was just beginning to whirr preparatory 
to striking the hour of ten when a noise was heard 
without and the hound bounded to his feet with a 
short bark. At the same instant the door of the room 
opened, admitting a fierce blast of wind, which hurled 
the sand on the floor half-way across the apartment, 
and with it came a man whose appearance indicated 
that he was at least one remove above those on the 
bench. The salutation greeting him, however, showed 
he was no one of importance, and, simply ordering a 
glass of rum from the now aroused landlord, he 
walked across the room with a lurch which betok- 
ened slight intoxication — no great sin in those days 
— and seating himself on the settle opposite the 
squire, stretched his legs to the fire, first carefully 
depositing against the wall an immense green cot- 





The door opened, admitting a fierce blast of wind, and with it came a man.” See page i6. 










The New-Comer. 17 

ton umbrella, then a recent innovation into the col- 
onies. He was a young man — not above twenty- 
three. His face was not prepossessing nor was he 
in rude grace, strength or figure the equal of any 
one in the room. But if Nature had failed to great- 
ly favor him in these respects, he was not repellent. 
A quick, though decidedly furtive black eye, deli- 
cate hands, showing him a stranger to hard, manual 
labor, and a clean-cut look about him gave him in- 
dividuality enough to place him somewhat in con- 
trast with the others. His dress, too, was a shade 
less rough than the coarse garments of the rest, and 
his hair, of an inky blackness, was queued and berib- 
boned with the greatest care. The fact that his um- 
brella was the source of a rivulet of water which 
trickled along the floor, and that his small-clothes 
were soaking, showing that the weather was grow- 
ing worse as the hours progressed. As he received 
his measure of rum from the landlord he broke the 
silence sharply. 

“The post has come and gone. Squire Strong. 
He left his packet at Deacon Walker’s, together 
with his horse, and then took himself off afoot.” 

The burly figure of the squire straightened with 
surprise as he asked : 


i8 


Mistress Hetty. 


“Did ye see him?” 

“I did not,” was the short reply. 

“And when did he arrive, good Master Cyrus 
Bent?” asked the squire, with a slight knitting of 
the brows at the idea of the committee having been 
thus ignored. 

“Some two hours agone,” was the rejoinder. 

“What? — and hast thou loitered for two hours?” 
demanded the squire as he rose to his feet. “Dost 
think I have the patience of a setting hen to await 
the whim of a boy? Two hours — and I ” 

“So please you, sir,” broke in the young man, ap- 
parently abashed, “I little thought the commit- 
tee would be in waiting on such a night — I little ex- 
pected to find you here at this hour. I was acting 
as escort to Mistress Hetty Wain and only dropped 
in here for ” 

“The Glebe House lass, ha !” interrupted the 
^squire, not mollified at this reference to the subject 
of his recent thoughts. “And ’tis Mistress Hetty who 
may account for that frivolous green tent ye brought 
hither! Where got ye that abomination? Has the 
rain ceased to fall by the Lord’s will that ye seek to 
hide from a wetting? ’Tis against sense and reason !” 

“ ’Tis somewhat aside from the subject,” returned 


The New-Comer. 


19 


the young man, looking up with a smile that was al- 
most a sneer; “but on that footing, and with due re- 
spect, you had better take the roof from your house 
or stand yourself and family outside to meet the next 
storm. Why do we seek the shade in summer or the 
fire in winter ? — the Lord holds as one both heat and 
cold!” 

“He has ye there. Squire,” broke in the landlord. 
“Faith, I think the new notion o’ carryin’ a roof wi’ 
ye is none so bad a one — albeit it makes a man look 
like a toadstool.” 

“I tell ye, Cyrus Bent,” said the squire, with an 
angry flush, ignoring both the landlord and the mat- 
ter in hand. “I tell ye thy ways are well known and 
this hovering about the Glebe house savors of a desire 
for an alliance with Episcopacy. Mayhap ye have a 
league with the Domine Challiss and are used by him 
for traitorous purposes. Let me but hear the tinkle 
of the royalist about ye and I swear ye will smart for’t. 
We like it not ! — we like it not !” The old gentleman 
began pacing the floor. “And how now?” he contin- 
ued, wheeling about, “What betwixt clarking it for 
Beacon, whose house lays but a stone’s throw from 
the tory parson’s, and dilly-dallying about the girl, 
have we not enough to warrant the probe being put 


20 


Mistress Hetty. 


to ye? Does not the Glebe house an’ the holler store 
hold enough of loyalty to the tyrant to make it worth 
while to suspicion ye ? Fie on me, lad !” he suddenly 
exclaimed, lowering his voice, which had been raised 
until the room rang; “fie on me! I mean not to be 
overharsh wi’ ye, but my bed has been waiting me 
these three hours an’ I have the length o’ the street 
an’ a Noah’s torrent to face. I doubt ye not ! — I doubt 
ye not I” And with a quick transition of temper pos- 
sible only in those possessing a soft heart, the squire 
turned and took down a heavy cloak hanging on a 
peg in the back of the settle. 

Under the lash of the squire’s tongue and the but 
half-concealed grins of the three sitting against the 
wall the young man hung his head, though the baleful 
light in his eye plainly indicated his unforgiving tem- 
per. He held himself well, however, and as the old 
gentleman flung his cloak about him, said; “I am 
sorry you are so put out by my delay, Squire Strong, 
and to shield you from the Noah’s flood you fear I 
will loan you that same green tent to ward it from 
your venerable head.” 

This was spoken with such a show of seemingly gen- 
uine humility that the slow brain of the elderly man 
failed to catch the disrespectful import of the words. 


The New-Comer. 


21 


r 

“Nay, lad,” was the kindly answer of the squire, as 
he carefully knocked the ashes from his pipe lest its 
long stem should be broken, and settled his three-cor- 
nered hat more firmly on his head. “Ere I would 
crawl along Woodbury street like an overgrown tur- 
tle under an ill-fitting shell, the drops might be buck- 
shot. Good-night to ye all.” 

But Cyrus Bent was in a peculiarly defiant mood. 
What with the recent small clash of words in which 
his superior logic had failed to make him appear the 
victor, and what with other matters bearing on him, 
he had no intention of letting the squire depart just 
then. For an instant a gleam of venom shot from his 
black eyes (venom being largely mingled with his 
nature), and as the chairman laid his hand upon the 
latch the young man spoke as though his remark 
was of the most commonplace character. 

“By the way, squire, I saw the domine to-night.” 

The old man swung about as though on a pivot. 

“The domine! The domine who?” 

“The Domine Challiss, to be sure.” 

“And where saw ye the Domine Challiss?” de- 
manded the old man, as he returned to the center of 
the room, profound interest mingled with anger 
showing on his broad face. 


22 Mistress Hetty. 

“At the Glebe house — or, if not within, at the 
door of the same.” 

“An’ ye did not arrest the man in the name o’ Con- 
gress and the committee!” gasped the squire, snap- 
ping the pipestem in his excitement; then, with great 
violence dashing the remains of the clay to the floor, 
“ ’Fore God! ye dullard, were afeared, or be ye hand 
in glove with his mouthings? Or are ye slow to 
know how he has insulted the town and openly blas- 
phemed by asking the Almighty to damn a righteous 
cause? I think we may well suspicion ye!” 

It was plain that Cyrus Bent had not looked for 
this outburst as a result of his attempt to hold the 
old patriot, for he appeared to shrink beneath the 
tirade. Gathering himself together, he glared back 
at his opponent, and, speaking deliberately, said: 

“Why do you doubt my loyalty to the colonies. 
Squire Strong? I have openly exposed the presence 
of the rector, because — because — well, as for arrest- 
ing him, he tops me four inches and outweighs me 
two stone; beside, there was his god-daughter be- 
twixt us.” 

“Well, well!” returned the chairman, impatiently; 
“an’ ’twas on account o’ pounds an’ inches an’ yer 
lass that ye held yer hand, hey? Is that it?” 


The New-Comer. 


23 


“Aye, certainly,” came the ready reply. 

“An’ ye stand not betwixt the rector and justice. 
Am I right?” 

“You have it precisely.” 

“Then, by the great Power, I’ll put yer mettle to 
the test!” exclaimed the old man, with a change of 
tone. “An’ ye have no love for the domine, go now 
with me, storm or calm, an we’ll set the man under 
lock an’ key in half an hour. He is at home — that I 
have yer word for. Are ye ripe for’t?” 

Well had it been for the young man had he then 
and there closed with the offer; but instead of leaping 
at this proposal to vindicate his loyalty to the patriotic 
cause he visibly quailed. He mumbled something 
under his breath, of which the words ‘Mistress Hetty’ 
and ‘ingratitude’ alone were heard, and, with a help- 
less look around, sank back on the settle from which 
he had risen, saying: “I cannot do that — indeed, I 
cannot do that!” 

Then it was that the squire’s temper came to a 
white heat. “I have ye now, my lad!” he thundered, 
walking up to his victim and snapping his great 
fingers in his face. “Ye flinch at the opinion of the 
domine’s god-daughter if ye lay a hand to dig out 
the old fox, but willing enough ye are to mark the 


24 


Mistress Hetty. 


burrow and have others bag the game. I tell ye now 
that ye be a coward an’ unworthy o’ the wench. 
Does the parson stand betwixt ye an’ the lass? I 
fancy so! I fancy so! Now, listen! To-morrow the 
committee calls upon the domine on the strength o’ 
yer information, an’ mark it, ye shall be with them. 
Ye will make it plain then whether ye be for the 
colonies, the king or yerself only, so rest ye on that 
and hold yerself ready. In my opinion ye love yer- 
self most, an’ the king comes next. Hold yerself 
ready, I tell ye.” 

And with this the squire abruptly turned and left 
the room, shutting the door behind him with a bang. 


CHAPTER III. 

HIS OWN PETARD. 

With the heavy, slouching movements of over- 
grown, muscle-bound youth, the trio on the bench 
gathered in their long legs and prepared to depart, 
the loud guffaw following the exit of Squire Strong 
showing at once the scant fellowship they held for 
Bent, as well as the restraint under which they had 
been placed by the presence of the chairman of the 
Committee of Inspection. With unconscious coarse- 
ness they jibed the young fellow on the settle with 
the “fix” into which he had gotten himself, advising 
him to take himself and “umbrell” to bed and hatch 
a scheme to get even with the “old man.” With 
keen animal enjoyment they had witnessed his dis- 
comfiture, and as they plunged through the inky 
blackness of the street it was “admired” how the 


26 


Mistress Hetty. 


squire “had skinned Cy Bent, who daresent be a-hold- 
in’ his nose so darn high arter this.” 

But, strange as it may appear, Cyrus Bent was not 
thinking of the squire, as he sat where he had fallen 
on the settle, but of the Rev. Archibald Challiss. It 
was he who had precipitated the trouble. In the 
slightly rum-fogged brain of the clerk of the “hollow 
store” there was an appreciation of first cause — 
Challiss — and all effects relative thereto sprang from 
the rector. By far too conceited to admit that his 
own blundering had aught to do with the more than 
uncomfortable position in which he now found him- 
self, he went directly to first principles, for the sole 
reason that the squire had hit the nail squarely on 
the head — the rector did stand between him and Mis- 
tress Hetty Wain. Not that he was at all sure that 
had the obstacle been removed his way to win the 
hand of the girl was certain; but one stumbling block 
was there which he would be well rid of. His hot 
brain had taken a hold on two fancies — first, that the 
rector personallv disliked him both for himself and his 
low social position; and, second, that he was casting 
something warmer than a fatherly eye upon his own 
god-daughter. That the man was forty and the girl 
but twenty had no weight in the moody, love-stricken 


His Own Petard. 


27 


brain of Cyrus Bent. The demon of jealousy leaped 
at him and had sat upon his shoulder for weeks — aye, 
months; in fact, ever since that golden day when he 
had seen the girl come riding home from Hartford 
on a pillion behind her godfather. Since then his 
days had been miserable — his nights, hours of acute 
suffering. He saw what a foil the sprightly (and, to 
him), highly-educated beauty would make to the tall, 
handsome and dignified student of theology; a power 
in the church, an aristocrat to his fingers’ tips. He 
saw, or thought he saw, something more than a 
fatherly solicitude in the rector’s attention to the girl 
— something deeper than respect in her frank ac- 
ceptance of the same. That her own father was also 
a tenant of the Glebe house brought no grain of com- 
fort. “The devil might play fast and loose under the 
nose of Thaddeus Wain and he be none the wiser,” 
was the comment of Bent. And to a certain extent 
he was right, for Thaddeus Wain had been cut down 
in his prime, and now, half paralyzed, more than half 
deaf and none too strong of mind, he was but little 
better than an overseer of home-lot chores, and 
passed most of his life smoking in the sun in summer 
and by the kitchen chimney in winter. 

With a man possessing the nature of Bent the ob- 


28 


Mistress Hetty. 


ject of his jealousy passed rapidly and by easy transi- 
tion into the object of his hatred, and in just propor- 
tion as grew his love for the girl had grown a bitter, 
rankling, though secret, enmity to the man. His 
finer qualities were stifled under the mingling of these 
two overwhelming passions, which, God wot, have 
held the world in thrall since man began; and when, 
ihat evening, to his great surprise, he had seen the 
rector come to the door and receive his god-daughter 
without giving him the usual invitation to walk in 
himself, his brain conceived the weak plan of setting 
the committee on the track of the churchman who 
had so long eluded all attempts to arrest him, and, 
not dreaming that, as an informer, he would become 
implicated, had done so in a simulated offhand man- 
ner and with the foregoing results. 

To meet Hetty Wain on the morrow would, under 
the circumstances, damn him forever m the eyes of 
that young lady. For her he had suffered much — 
from his standpoint. All the misery he had under- 
gone appeared to him a sacrifice of self solely for her. 
His worship of this girl, shown only in affectionate 
innuendoes from which she appeared to recoil, only 
increased the debt she owed him. For her he had 
endured the merciless ridicule of the village on ac- 


His Own Petard. 


29 


count of that green cotton umbrella which he had 
brought from Hartford to protect her pretty head, 
and for her, he protested inwardly, he was ready 
to die. 

It occurred to him that he might warn the min- 
ister of the intended visit of the committee, but he 
saw the hazard of such an act as the absence of the 
rector would reflect on himself. He was the one 
young man in the village who had not been loud in 
the expression of his political opinions (if indeed he 
had any), there being too much on his heart and brain 
for him to take an interest in aught but the passion 
consuming him; and being both of Enelish birth, a 
comparative new-^omer in the town of Woodbury 
and without influence, the natural result of a failure 
to arrest the rector would be to put him in the light 
of a false witness and bring upon him the heavy hand 
of the committee. Public disgrace was an abhorrent 
thing to him. To him it meant jail in Hartford and 
a long absence from Hetty Wain. 

His next thought was to have Hetty away from 
the Glebe house at the critical time, but even this 
being possible, it was folly to think that his part in 
the arrest of the minister would not be known far 
and wide. There were but two ways out of his 


30 


Mistress Hetty. 


dilemma, and those — in some way to prove his high 
patriotism in the eyes of the committee, thereby leav- 
ing them nothing to doubt, or to warn the minister 
and take the consequences. The last would probably 
have been acted upon had not Fate seemingly put 
the possibility of the first in his hands. 

In his deep perplexity the young clerk had twice 
gone to the bar and, in an abstracted manner, drank 
off two more measures of raw rum as though the 
liquor was a brain lubricant. The landlord, visibly 
showing impatience as his moody guest still lingered, 
was industriously covering the great backlog with 
ashes as a smart hint that he wished more for his bed 
than for the young man’s custom, when the hound, 
now curled on the hearth, again leaped to his feet 
and growled a plain warning that a stranger was 
approaching. ■ 

As the landlord, still on his knees, turned to look 
over his shoulder, the door opened and, together with 
the new arrival, admitted a blast of wind that filled 
the room with its chilly breath. In a trice the gutter- 
ing candles were extinguished, and the half-banked 
fire, now but a glowing mass of coals livened by the 
strong draught, was the only light in the large apart- 


ment. 


His Own Petard. 


31 


With a muttered curse at the sudden darkness, the 
landlord hastened for a fresh candle, and by the time 
its feeble rays made the outlines of the room visible 
the new arrival had walked to the great chimney, 
thrown his soaking cloak across the settle, and, with 
his back to the fire, .stood scanning the room and its 
occupants. 

As the candle was placed upon the table and its 
light fell upon the face of the stranger, the half in- 
toxicated man at the bar gave a lurch forward, then 
steadied himself as he gazed at the tall figure before 
him, for to all appearances there, in the flesh, stood 
the Rev. Archibald Challiss. Though the landlord 
did not appear to notice anything familiar about his 
late-coming guest, it might have been for the reason 
that the wick of the candle, being newly kindled, its 
light was none of the brightest, and the gentleman’ 
had the broad collar of his coat turned up about his 
ears. 

As Bent gave a muttered exclamation, the stranger 
swung about to the fire, putting the breadth of his 
athletic-looking back to the room, and then all doubts 
vanished from the mind of the young clerk. It was 
the rector in person, the only differences noted being 
that his queue was tied instead of clubbed, and that 


32 


Mistress Hetty. 


in lieu of his usual pumps he now wore heavy riding 
boots well splashed with mud. In his well-known 
and resonant voice the new-comer bespoke a bed 
which had felt the warming-pan, then, ordering a 
glass of spirits, sat himself down by the dying embers 
to await the landlord’s return, gazing moodily the 
while at the faint blue wreaths of smoke drifting up 
the chimney. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE ATTACK. 

What the Episcopal rector could be doing at the 
Oranaug Inn at an hour close to midnight, asking 
for a bed when his own house was within rifle shot, 
was something more than a simple puzzle to the now 
addled wits of Cyrus Bent. Could it be that his 
enemy desired to escape from the town, knowing the 
danger that always threatened him was daily growing 
greater? If so, he would hardly have chosen the inn 
in which to conceal himself that night. What could 
have happened to render his hiding-place unsafe? It 
had recently held him securely enough. • 

Nothing to clear these matters presented itself to 
Bent, nor did he give the subject much thought. The 
one thing plain to him was that at the fire sat the 
rector, whom Providence had clearly placed in a posi- 
tion to be warned. The conditions appeared to be 
an answer to an unspoken prayer. 


34 


Mistress Hetty. 


Casting a glance about to make sure he was un- 
observed, Bent silently crossed the room, and, stoop- 
ing to the ear of the seemingly engrossed rector, 
whispered: 

“Get from the town to-night, sir; you are in dan- 
ger! The committee is going to the Glebe house to- 
morrow morning. I heard so not an hour since. I 
tell you this at great risk to myself.” 

For an answer the sitter turned about suddenly. 

“The devil it is! What has any committee to do 
with me, and how am I in danger?” 

As the supposed divine thus spoke he came to his 
feet, throwing down the collar of his coat as he faced 
Bent, and that young man staggered back as he saw 
the stranger’s face now full in the stronger glow of 
the candle. If it was the Rev. Archibald Challiss he 
had grown a small, brown, military-looking mustache 
within a few hours, but aside from this novel addition 
to his features and a change in the cut of his black 
clothes, it was the minister. There was the same 
figure, the same dark eyes, the same straight nose 
and facial contour, with its strong and handsome out- 
line of chin and forehead. The voice was the same, 
but the manner was totally different. The action was 
too quick, and lacked the quiet dignity of the rector. 


The Attack. 


35 


and without a doubt the stranger was much younger 
— in fact, not over thirty years of age. For an in- 
stant Cyrus Bent blinked at the man before him, who, 
in turn, tried to look through his sudden and un- 
welcome disturber; and then, finding his voice and 
his wits together, the clerk stammered: 

“I — I took you to be the — the Domine Challiss! 
Are you — are you his ghost?” 

“Challiss! Challiss!” broke out the stranger, im- 
patiently. ‘‘Well, I suppose I do look like Challiss, 
nor have lacked being told the same, times enough. 
Where is Challiss, in the name o’ God? Have I not 
been pounding at the Glebe house for an hour past? 
The place is deserted.” 

“Nay, he was there to-night!” answered Bent, re- 
covering himself. 

“There to-night and allow a man to stand outside! 
I tried each door and window. The place was as 
tight as a fort and as silent as the pit!” 

“Like as not,” was the answer; “but he is there — 
or was. What would you have of him?” 

“And is Hetty — I beg her pardon — is Mistress 
Wain with him?” asked the stranger, with something 
like interest taking the place of the disgust he had 
shown. 


36 


Mistress Hetty. 


Bent gave a gulp. “I think she is,” he answered, 
slowly and suspiciously, just as the landlord re-entered 
the room. Then, as an idea flashed on him, he con- 
tinued with a decided raise of voice: “I think she 
is; but, sir, the times are a bit twisted, and as you 
are a stranger it behooves me, a man loyal to the 
cause, to inquire what business you have in the house 
of a pestilent Tory, and that, too, late on a stormy 
night!” 

The landlord stopped in his progress across the 
room, while a broad smile broke over the face of the 
new-comer. For a moment he silently contemplated 
the clerk, and then said: 

“My young friend, you have hardly the girth of 
groin or depth of chest to make personal demands, 
unless you can back them with something stronger 
than your body. What is my business to you?” 

“It ill becomes you, sir, to slur the body God 
gave me,” answered Bent, slightly pot valiant and 
strengthened by the thought which had leaped to his 
brain a moment before. ‘‘My demand is one no 
honest man need fear, and my backing what every 
traitor to the colonies may tremble at!” 

“By my faith!!’ ejaculated the stranger, turning to 
the landlord. “Yon fellow is a free-booter in politics 


The Attack. 


Z7 

and hot on the trail of both friend and foe. To what 
breed does he belong? At one moment he whispers 
in the ear of a supposed pestilent Tory, taking me 
to be your Rev. Challiss, to beware of a danger, I 
know not what; then, by the grace of your appearing, 
he holds aloud for the colonies. Take him off! Is 
my bed yet ready?” 

“Your honor must have misunderstood,” returned 
the host of the Oranaug, hovering betwixt the fear of 
offending his guest and the result of abetting him, 
at the same time plainly showing astonishment as he 
looked at the speaker. “ ’Twas easy to mistake you 
for the domine!” he concluded. 

‘T misunderstood nothing, neither have I anything 
to conceal,” returned the guest, impatiently. “He 
did mistake me for the domine. I am lately from 
England, and am brother — or half-brother — to your 
rector. Am I plain? I bear certain papers to him. 
Mistress Hetty — but that is beyond the matter. All 
I would like to know is, what danger my brother can 
be threatened with that he must be warned against 
it as I was warned by this young man when he mis- 
took me for him.” 

“Sir,” said the landlord, “I was not present when 
he spoke such words of warning. I cannot vouch 


38 


Mistress Hetty. 


for what he said. Master Cyrus has not been long 
among us, but I deem him not double-faced. The 
fact is that your brother is to be called upon by the 
Committee of Inspection to answer to a charge of 
treason to the colonies, Master Cyrus having pointed 
out the fact that he was at home at last.’’ 

^‘And has he been away?” 

*‘Nay; who knows but perhaps the young lass of 
the Glebe house or her father? Withal that he is in 
danger of the tar-barrel if he is caught, he seems to 
go and come as he lists, yet none can unearth his 
hiding-place.” 

“The devil you say! Does this not jump with what 
I was telling you? So this same Master Cyrus has 
discovered my brother to your committee, and yet 
he would warn him.” 

‘T know naught of the warning, sir; ’tis hard to 
believe.” And the landlord looked from Bent to his 
guest and back again, while the stranger bored the 
young man with a look half angry, half contemptuous. 

While this conversation was going forward the 
clerk’s mind was in a whirl. He had made a tre- 
mendous mistake, and saw it. With the landlord’s 
last implied doubt ringing in his ears he felt, however, 
that he might plunge through this self-made net by 



Bent staggered back, until the settle, catching him below the knees, tripped him.” See page 39. 






The Attack. 


39 


a total denial. His own bare word against that of 
the rector’s brother — doubtless a Tory, also — would 
be ample to clear him. Here, too, was a chance to 
show his patriotic quality, having the landlord as a 
witness to his valor. With a somewhat cloudy con- 
ception of how to start in the right direction, but with 
a tongue that was clear enough and seemingly 
under command, he broke out: 

“Hard to believe! It is impossible to believe! 
Look, Tobey! If we have missed the domine, here 
is game wellnigh as high — a man who bears papers 
to a traitor. And he has the effrontery to stand there 
and tell you that I warned him! It is monstrous! 
He lies, and he knows it!” 

He drew a long breath and was about to proceed, 
but was interrupted. The new-comer took three 
steps toward his traducer and smote him heavily in 
the face with his open palm. Bent staggered back 
until the settle, catching him below the knees, tripped 
him. He fell across it, carrying it with him, man and 
settle going to the floor with a crash. Turning on 
the fairly frightened landlord, the stranger thundered : 

“And is it thus ye allow a guest to be insulted in 
your house? Be ye in doubt as to my word? Damn 
such a hostelry! If your bed is no better than your 


40 


Mistress Hetty. 


reception, my stay with ye will be short enough. 
Show me to my room.” 

The host of the Oranaug, mightily impressed by 
the commanding air of his guest, as well as by his 
prompt retaliation to insult, muttered a stammering 
apology as he took up the candle and led him from 
the room, leaving the man on the floor to gather 
himself together in the darkness as best he could. 


CHAPTER V. 

HETTY WAIN. 

Hetty Wain stood at the door of the Glebe house 
looking up the road. It was a beautiful morning. 
The storm of the night before had gone, and now 
the sweet west wind was blowing a gentle gale, bear- 
ing with it a hint of the wonderfully forward spring 
of 1775. By leaps and bounds the warm rain had 
drawn the frost from the ground, and the air was 
full of the smell of the earth. The sky, soft and 
tender, was dappled with cottonlike clouds that 
drifted lazily across it, and the wide blue seas between 
the sailing islands were of wonderful depth. The 
naked trees in the yard whispered a tale of the com- 
ing season, and in the lulls of the wind the girl could 
faintly catch the roar of the swollen Pomperaug and 
the grinding of the hurrying ice. 

The maiden herself was a fair type of the morning, 


42 


Mistress Hetty. 


full of the flush and vigor of youth; gentle in breed- 
ing, beautiful in figure and lovely in face. Life 
seemed to spring from her, and the very doorway 
of the homely old house lost something of its square 
and uncompromising character as it framed the pic- 
ture. Her clear, blue eyes were as deep as the vel- 
vety sky above her, and her whole being — from the 
end of her coarse shoe to the top of her pretty head — 
betokened the richness that goes with young woman- 
hood alone. It was the bursting of the bud — the rush 
of early summer — the glory of the rising sun. 

And yet, withal, there was a touch of something 
softly serious in the droop to the corners of her sweet 
mouth as she shaded her eyes with her small hand — 
a hand slightly calloused in the palm — and looked 
east. Under her eye and near the turn of the road 
she saw a crowd of people gathered about the front 
of Beacon’s store, and for a moment her brows con- 
tracted. “It must be salt day,” she murmured; “I 
hope it’s nothing worse — and it’s very late!” 

And for the inmates of the Glebe house it was very 
late. The night before had been one of alarm, for 
the house had been beset by some one, doubtless in 
quest of the rector. Each door had been hammered 
upon and each window tried and tried again for the 


Hetty Wain. 


43 


space of an hour. Plainly enough the girl could see 
the prints of boot tracks in the soft loam of the yard, 
but of the number who had come with the hope of 
dragging the rector from his bed she had no idea. 
Daintily lifting her skirt of homespun, she stepped 
out. She might have been a scout in a hostile coun- 
try, so carefully did she go the rounds of the premises. 
It was for more than eggs she was looking as she 
climbed the mow after probing the stall with its single 
fat pad and opening the cowpen. It was for more 
than to figure the remainder of the diminished wood- 
pile that she peered into the recess of the shed. Even 
the pigpen partook of her scrutiny; and then, with a 
little nod as though of self-approval, she returned to 
the house. Soon after the back door swung open, 
and the solid wooden shutters of the lower windows 
were thrown back, letting into the long, quaint 
kitchen the slant of the brilliant morning sun. 

As she hastened to prepare the breakfast — a simple 
enough meal in the Glebe house — there was no song 
on her lips, but, instead, a constant watchful shifting 
of her gaze through the window that looked east and 
toward the hollow store! Until the night before the 
house had not been visited by any one more formid- 
able than Cyrus Bent for three days; but for the 


44 


Mistress Hetty. 


young girl the strain of anxiety had hardly been less 
on that account. She knew that danger threatened 
her patron and godfather, and, womanlike, her fears 
became magnified at every unusual event. The group 
that hung about the door of the store might mean 
that it was the day upon which the townsfolk were 
at liberty to buy salt at the price fixed by the Com- 
mittee of Inspection, or it might be that something 
untoward was threatening the rector. 

For herself there was no fear. The hatred shot 
at the Glebe house had not been aimed at Hetty 
Wain. For her faith she was pitied; for her beauty 
admired and envied. Through the rector’s Toryism 
she suffered a species of social ostracism, but it was 
not strongly marked and troubled her not the least. 
Against herself nothing was said. The superior at- 
tainments gained in her Hartford education, which 
ran from housekeeping to the high accomplishment 
of being able to play the harpsichord, and sing to it, 
to boot, prevented contempt, while her politics — pre- 
sumably antagonistic to the prevailing spirit — was a 
matter of no moment, she being a woman. No one, 
not even the rector, had ever heard Hetty Wain open 
her lips and express an opinion as to the rights or 
wrongs of the existing stupendous agitation. No 


Hetty Wain. 


45 


one asked for her ideas on the subject; she was pre- 
judged. Was she not an Episcopalian and an inmate 
of the Glebe house? And was that not enough? 
The girl had no intimates, nor did she seem to regret 
it. A few old ladies comprised her visiting list; but 
of the society of the young, with the exception of 
Bent, she had little or nothing to do. She was as 
one in a transitory state, hoping and waiting; yet 
waiting for what? 

It might have been that hope, long deferred, or it 
might have been anxiety for her godfather that was 
dragging down the sober corners of her small mouth 
or throwing a shadow over her brow that morning. 
Be the cause what it might, it was not intended for 
other eyes, for as she laid the last pewter dish on the 
table the shuffle of a feeble step was heard on the 
back stairs and the door opened to admit a man whose 
loose shamble and nerveless movements betokened 
the cripple, and on the instant her face cleared. 
Hetty went up to her father and kissed his stubble- 
grown cheek, at the same time shouting a “good- 
morning” in his ear. 

“Good-morning, c^ild! Has Jake done the 
chores?” he asked, in a tremulous voice. 

“He won’t be here until noon to-day, daddy!’* she 


46 


Mistress Hetty. 


screamed back. “He filled the woodbox last night, 
and now there be only the pigs to feed. I let the 
cow out. Is god-dad stirring, do you know?” 

For an answer the old man — though he was 
scarcely fifty — only shook his gray head, and, sliding 
with difficulty into his chair at the table, proceeded to 
eat his meal with that slovenly carelessness which 
marks the weak in mind. With the tenderness of a 
thoughtful and loving woman, Hetty attended to 
her father’s wants, which were few; nor were they 
satisfied ere the sound of a man’s heavy footstep was 
heard on the barren back stairway, and it was just 
then that the girl cast one of her numerous glances 
through the window. To her surprise the black 
crowd about the store had become active. A large 
fragment appeared to have detached itself, and was 
coming down the road toward the Glebe house. Both 
instinct and reason told the girl that such a gathering 
of men could have but one object in view! With a 
quick exclamation she flew to the stairway, crying: 

“They are coming again, god-dad!” 

The steps ceased. 

“How many this time, Hetty?” asked the rector, 
his sonorous voice sounding rich and clear. 

“Oh, ever so many! And you with little sleep, I 


Hetty Wain; 47 

warrant, and less breakfast! Stop a moment — 
here!” 

She ran back to the table, seized a loaf therefrom, 
laid upon it a generous lump of butter and returned 
to the door. “Go now,” she continued, “and pray 
the siege will be neither protracted nor bear fruit. 
Don’t come near me — I mustn’t see you, god-dad! 
My eyes are tight shut! Hurry! hurry!” 

“Hetty, my girl, act no lie in that manner!” said the 
minister, as he advanced into the room and laid his 
hand upon the latch of the parlor door. “What have 
I to fear from this mob? Cannot one bear persecu- 
tion for a righteous cause? I would be unworthy of 
my office were I not willing to suffer for my king! I 
would willingly meet them were it not that you ” 

But Hetty w^as in no mood for delay. Laying her 
hand on his arm, she urged him into the parlor and 
closed the door between them; then she hastened to 
the 'table, snatched up the third plate with its knife 
and fork, and thrust them into the cupboard. It must 
not appear that the minister was within the house. 

In the mean time from the parlor sounded the steps 
of the rector as he crossed the floor. There was the 
noise of a latch, of a tumbling woodpile, and then a 
crash as though a heavy timber had fallen. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE SEARCHING PARTY. 

The sound of the falling timber was that of a signal. 
With a lightness and swiftness of motion known only 
in the young, the girl took from its nail a coarse 
broom and hastened into the parlor. It was a cold 
and cheerless apartment. The fire was laid ready 
for the brand, but it had not been kindled for many 
a day. On either end of the high chimney shelf was 
a massive silver candle-stick bearing an unused can- 
dle, the space betwixt them being filled with autumn 
boughs, their leaves now withered crisp and brown. 
A single mahogany table, three heavy chairs and a 
fine harpsichord against the wall comprised the furni- 
ture. The only relief to the desolate stiffness of the 
room lay in the newly laundered surplice that hung 
like a ghost from a peg in the wall. In the broad 
radiance streaming through the window the foot- 


49 


The Searching Party. 

prints of a man could be seen on the sanded floor, 
their direction leading from the kitchen door to the 
closet by the chimney side. To this closet the girl 
went. Save for a pile of logs within, it was empty, 
but without a moment’s hesitation she shifted the 
wood, throwing it against the rear wall in a disorderly 
heap; then, with a few passes of the broom, she ob- 
literated the marks on the floor and ran upstairs to 
the rector’s room. 

In her desperate hurry, methodical withal, it was 
but a few moments ere the bed was remade, the room 
put in order, and every trace of its late occupancy 
removed. Then she placed her hand over her small 
bodice and looked from the window. The crowd had 
stopped midway in the road and was clustered about 
a common center as though engaged in consultation. 

^ Hetty breathed hard; then, with a heightened color 
born of haste and expectancy, but lacking another 
sign of her inward perturbation, the young girl re- 
turned to the kitchen and, with forced calmness, 
seated herself at the table. 

So rapid had been her movements that she waited 
fully three minutes ere the shuffling of many feet 
and sound of voices was heard from without. The 
poise was but a preface to the loud knock at the door. 


50 


Mistress Hetty. 


which, without invitation, was immediately opened, 
and there walked into the kitchen the Committee of 
Inspection, headed by its redoubtable chairman. 
Squire Strong, the accompanying crowd of followers 
blocking the doorway, though they made no further 
move to invade the privacy of the house. 

With well-feigned astonishment the girl arose from 
her seat, courtesying to her guests, and without fur- 
ther civility or pretense toward hospitality, remained 
standing, her eyes wandering from the squire to each 
of the committee in turn, finally resting on the face 
of Cyrus Bent, who brought up the rear and had 
sidled to the flank of the group farthest from the 
chairman. With something of wonder she marked 
the violent red welt that lay across the left cheek of the 
young man, though the rest of his countenance wore 
an unusual pallor; his eyes she did not meet, for he 
looked persistently at the floor. For a moment there 
was an awkward pause, then the chairman, clearing 
his voice as though to break the ice of the situation, 
spoke loudly: 

‘'We wish to see the rector!” 

Hetty walked from her chair to where her father 
still sat eating, he having apparently taken no more 
notice of the entry of the invaders than though their 



We wish to see the rector.” See page 50. 



The Searching Party. 


51 


advent was an hourly occurrence. Laying her hand 
upon her parent’s shoulder, she answered: 

“I am afraid you cannot see him to-day, Squire 
Strong. You see he is not here.” 

“He was here last night, miss,” was the sharp re- 
joinder, “and he cannot be far off. Ye will bring 
him before us!” 

Cyrus Bent looked up in time to catch the glance 
the girl gave him. To his surprise there was neither 
scorn nor anger in her face, but instead a smile, 
though whether of pity or amusement he could not 
determine, for at once she redirected her attention 
to the speaker and answered: 

“Indeed, Squire Strong, I am not my godfather’s 
keeper; besides, sir, I would not produce him if I 
could! Why do you persist in persecuting a man — 
a minister of God — who does but follow his con- 
science, as doubtless you do yours, sir? In what has 
he harmed any one?” 

“Do not question me, girl! We are here in the 
name of the law to arrest a Tory dangerous to the 
State !” answered the squire, with a wave of his hand 
that indicated the entire committee, as he knitted his 
brows and showed his displeasure by an irritable rais- 
ing of his voice. “This young man vouches for his 


52 Mistress Hetty. 

presence here last night. Will ye tell us where 
he is?” 

“I will not! Do you expect me to be an informer?” 
was Hetty’s retort, as she dashed another look at 
Cyrus and set her red lips tight. Then she continued, 
breaking out suddenly: “You have but two things 
to do — you or the committee, or whomever you may 
hire for the work.” 

“And what might these be, young woman?” asked 
the chairman. 

“Search the house as you did before, and then, 
finding your searching useless, arrest me for a contu- 
macious person and leave my helpless father alone to 
get along as he may. This is the most you can .do, 
and I am ready. I am ready for anything but this 
continued persecution. If my godfather is but in 
danger through me he was never so safe!” Here 
she drew herself to her full height, her anger making 
her magnificent, and patted the invalid on the. shoul- 
der as though she petted a child. The paralytic 
looked up wonderingly, but immediately relapsed into 
seeming stupidity, while the squire, seeing no hope 
of bettering himself in a war of words with such a 
spirit, turned to his fellows, who had stood, hats in 
-hand, and began a serious consultation. 


53 


The Searching Party. 

There was much nodding and shaking of heads, 
whispered suggestions and pursing of the lips; but as 
the committee had laid out the plain plan of breaking 
up the royalistic nest which was sheltered by the roof 
of the Glebe house, they were not long in coming to a 
conclusion as to how to act in the case of the maiden 
of the rectory. The chairman, still as spokesman, 
stepped forward, his fine old face hardened by de- 
termination, 

“Young woman,” he said, “it has become our duty 
to act upon the suggestion ye have made. We be- 
lieve ye to be standin’ betwixt the domine and jus- 
tice, and therefore are ye dangerous also. Your 
father will be taken care of; fear naught for him — 
an’ it is for ye to make yerself ready an’ follow us 
after we once more go through this building. It may 
not appear well to ye, but we think the High Court at 
Hartford may make ye a little less downright to those 
who only do their sworn duty to the colonies.”' 

Hetty quailed inwardly at the unexpected result of 
her bravado, though she held herself erect, and, except 
for a lightning-like change of color, was apparently 
unmoved. Not so Cyrus Bent. His knees visibly 
smote each other. With something between a cry 
and a groan, he broke out: 


54 


Mistress Hetty. 


“No, no! you will not do this! I will not have it 
so! Has not your cursed committee enough to do 
without hounding women?” Then, as one over- 
wrought, he staggered against the wall. 

What the immediate result of this outbreak would 
have been it is hard to determine, but at that instant 
there came a diversion. A noise of voices and 
scuffling, with a well-rounded oath or two, was heard 
from the yard, and a moment later a man elbowed his 
way through the throng which blocked the door, 
scattering it right and left. Like one in authority 
he strode into the room, with the exclamation, “What 
is all this about?” but, catching sight of the young 
girl, whose cheeks were now the color of ashes, he 
sprang toward her with the cry of “Hetty!” Like a 
frightened child she stepped from his outstretched 
hands, her eyes glowing strangely as she looked at 
him, her lips apart; then, with an hysterical laugh, 
which ended in a sob as her nervous tension gave 
away, she ejaculated: 

“Sir! sir! Oh, Talbot! they are persecuting us!” 
and sank into a chair. 


CHAPTER VIL 
MR. TALBOT MARCY. 

The advent of a total stranger occasioned some- 
thing of a shock among the committee. His face 
and figure, so strikingly like the rector’s, would have 
been enough to stir them; but, coming on top of the 
surprising explosion of Cyrus Bent, it created a sensa- 
tion and a situation highly theatrical. The sturdy 
townsmen, variously swayed by their emotions, stood 
for a moment openly wondering at what to them was 
in the nature of an apparition, while the crowd with- 
out pushed and struggled for a coign of vantage at 
the door and window. But ere one of the inquisitors 
could gather his wits to cope with the new situation 
the stranger had wheeled about and confronted the 
group, his eyes ablaze, and, with a voice like a trum- 
pet, he vociferated: 

“Persecution! Thunder and devils! In what 


56 


Mistress Hetty. 


manner and by what right do ye persecute a damsel? 
Are ye the worshipful committee of whom I heard 
last night? And, failing to find my brother, do ye 
think to vent your disappointment on her helpless 
head? Expound, in the name o’ God! My patience 
is none of the fairest!” 

“Your patience has little to do with us or our 
duty!” broke in one of the lesser lights, at which there 
came a shout from the yard, “Tar the Tory!” and 
“Pitch him out to us!” “Jail him!” and a variety of 
other cries, which were suddenly silenced by Squire 
Strong striding to the door and closing it in the faces 
of the throng without; then, coming to the front, and 
with a voice trembling from anger, he shouted in 
turn: 

“Who be ye that dare to come betwixt us an’ our 
actions? By the brand on ye we have yet another 
to deal with! A fig for yer interference! We be de- 
tarmined to catch the domine, an’ ’twill be strange 
if ye be not shaken up in the same basket! This 
young woman knows the whereabouts of her god- 
father an’ refuses to reveal him; therefore we commit 
her for trial as a person dangerous to the interests 
of the colonies. I tell ye we have our duty to per- 
form, an’ performed it will be! An’ ye openly call 


Mr. Talbot Marcy. 57 

yerself his brother? Ye look the breed! By what 
right do ye break in upon us in this manner?” 

“He struck me last night when I called on Toby 
to help arrest him! He bears papers from England 
to the domine — he confesses as much!” broke in 
Bent, who had recovered himself, and now stood 
pointing at the man upon whom all eyes were fixed. 

“He does? An’ why have ye kept this back from 
us?” demanded the chairman, without softening voice 
or face; but before an answer could be given the new- 
comer spoke. 

“You are a lot of sheep with wolfish instincts!” he 
began, with a total change in his address. “Strike 
him? Aye, I struck him for the insult he gave me. 
He is naught but the whistling wind — he is of no 
moment — his actions of no weight! Listen, you sirs! 
I lack no respect for your office, but I question your 
right to hound a harmless gentleman whose sole 
faults are praying for the king and eluding you — the 
latter, I fear, troubling you more than the offence. 
Ye be good, God-fearing men, doubtless, and will 
not question the Christian spirit of my brother; why, 
then, does h^ do harm in praying for the king? Are 
ye not taught, and do ye not teach others, the lesson 
of love to enemies? Can prayers for your enemies 


Mistress Hetty. 


58 

make them powerful against the right? Is your 
church for the Sabbath alone, that ye play with the 
devil and his passions for the rest of the week? 
Shame on ye!” 

The presentation of this mixture of applied Chris- 
tianity and sophistry took the committee somewhat 
aback. Even the face of the squire lost its angry 
cast and bore one of doubt. But it was not for long. 
With a natural instinct toward self-justification, he 
answered: 

“We have the authority of the high court at Hart- 
ford, and, though your words, sir, be fine ” 

“Authority for what?’^ interrupted the stranger. 
“Authority to suppress treason in every shape an’ 
arrest all treasonable persons!” 

“And since when has it been treason to pray to the 
Almighty — even for the king?” came the sharp retort. 

t 

“You forget yourselves, sirs. Your authority refers 
only to what the court would call overt acts — assist- 
ance to the enemies of the colonies or the giving of 
information to be used against them; and prayers are 
not interdicted, nor is private opinion. Nay, more — 
George of England is yet your king! I know of no 
act which has cut the colonies from the mother coun- 
try, nor do ye. Has war been declared? It is true 


Mr. Talbot Marcy. 


59 


that Congress is preparing an army for the struggle 
that must come; but your dignity would suffer less 
were you less ready to use your strength on an inno- 
cent man and a helpless maiden!” 

“Sir, who be ye? And from where do ye hail?” 
demanded the chairman, visibly impressed both by 
the authoritative manner of the speaker and the un- 
doubted truth of his statement regarding the rela- 
tions betwixt colonies and king, but without abating 
his tenacity of purpose in the slightest degree. 
“Would ye argue that we lie still till there be a British 
dragoon in each house, and then follow our instruc- 
tions? We expect as much from ye — by yer looks; 
but we happen not to be here to split words with a 
stranger — an enemy to liberty whose strength lies in 
a smooth tongue! We follow our commission, an’ 
’tis our intention to search this house. Failing to 
find the rector, we will hold the damsel for trial at 
Hartford.” 

“Ye will?” ' 

“We will!” 

“Well, your force is somewhat too much for my 
single arm, but at Hartford I shall be! Will ye not 
take me as a prisoner also? Am I not as dangerous 
as the maiden?” 


6o 


Mistress Hetty. 


‘‘That we will, too!” vociferated the old man, walk- 
ing up and thrusting his face into his opponent’s. 
“Who be ye, I say, who dare bait this committee in 
this unseemly fashion?” 

Instead of the wrathful explosion which might well 
have been expected, the stranger smiled broadly. 

“ ’Tis but fair to put ye in the light,” was the ready 
answer, given in an easy, good-natured tone. “I am 
Talbot Marcy, late colonial commissioner to Eng- 
land, half-brother to the man ye are hounding, and 
colonel, by commission, in the Colonial forces now 
being raised by Congress. A week agone I left Bos- 
ton as a dispatch-bearer with a dispatch to Governor 
Trumbull from Dr. Warren, From your governor I 
bore a packet to Deacon Walker, of this town. On my 
way I overtook the post and bore hither his dispatches 
for him, his horse having given out. Gentlemen, I 
am at your disposal for further inquiries.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PROTEST. ’ 

Had the platoon of British regulars made their 
appearance and placed the inmates of the house un- 
der arrest, the consternation could not have been 
greater than at the words of the stranger. There 
was not a man but who had heard of Commissioner 
Marcy, only one who doubted the truth of the state- 
ment, and not one who was willing to openly recede 
from the position taken by the chairman, who, on the 
foregoing announcement, had stepped back as though 
in fear of assault. 

There was no spirit of subserviency in the breasts 
of our forefathers. Had the man before them sud- 
denly discovered himself as George the Third, in per- 
son, there would have been no precipitate apologies 
or servile bending of the knee. The names of War- 
ren and Trumbull had fully as much potency, but the 
hard-headed, hard-fisted sons of New England were 


62 Mistress Hetty. 

as loath to abandon a theory as to run from its 
consequences. 

This mixture of respect and stubbornness had the 
effect of silencing all parties for the moment — all save 
Bent, who hung on vengeance against the man who 
had struck him, and whose brain (subtle enough at 
times) clearly foresaw that by the turn of affairs he 
was likely to be made the scapegoat of the day. No 
one would lift voice or hand to protect him, but he 
conceived how he could protect himself. He saw it 
all clearly enough now. That the minister was within 
the house at that moment he nowise doubted. He 
had no well-defined plan of action until the newcomer 
seemed to open a way. He would clear himself by 
finding the Rev. Challiss, and, according to the words 
of Talbot Marcy, if indeed it was he, the court would 
acquit the minister. It would at once determine his 
political position to the satisfaction of the committee, 
nor would it be a difficult matter to afterw^ard explain 
the act to Hetty, that all might appear consistent with 
his love for her, and then 

But he went no further into possibilities. Raising 
his voice as though he had been the victim of an 
outrage, he cried: 

*T protest! I protest to one and all! Let not 


The Protest. 


63 


that man cajole you into leaving the house un- 
searched. You brought me here that I might be 

t 

cleared or condemned, and if you depart without tak- 
ing action I demand an acquittal. I tell you the 
domine was here last night, and is here now, and I 
can find him. Mistress Hetty Wain has neither heart 
nor hand in his coming or going, and, moreover, it 
would be a foul thing to do if you visit the shortcom- 
ings of her godfather on her head! The man before 
you has papers on him! Who knows him to be Com- 
missioner Marcy? Are you to be blinded by a bald 
statement?” 

He stood forth, his hands stretched out in appeal, 
and, his words ringing through the silence, variously 
affected his hearers. Hetty, who from the time 
she sank into her chair had kept her face buried In 
her hand, raised her head and said; “I thank you. 
Master Bent, for your defense; but 'your statement 
is hardly true. I know, or think I know, the where- 
abouts of the rector. Nevertheless, I thank you.” 

The voice was kindly, and the clerk’s heart re- 
sponded to the first words that might be construed 
as considerate he had received that day; Marcy 
scowled as he listened to the protest and rejoinder, 
while the chairman seized upon the opening offered. 


64 


Mistress Hetty. 


“There is justice in the lad’s words,” he ventured. 
“ ’Tis but fair ye prove yerself, and, having done so, 
ye are bound to help us, for not only has the domine 
prayed for the king — which may or may not be an 
offense — but, by the Lord! I had well-nigh forgotten 
to tell ye that from the pulpit he has the same as 
openly damned the colonies, which, I take it, cannot 
be smoothed over!” 

“Is it so?” said Marcy, with the same easy humor 
he had assumed. “Then has the study of theology- 
addled my brother’s judgment. Mistress Hetty, have 
you the smallest objection to their searching the' 
house?” 

“Not the smallest,” replied the girl, looking away 
from him. 

“Then off with ye on a fool’s errand!” cried Marcy, 
turning to the committee. “As for this lady, ye may 
leave her under my guarantee.” 

“And of what value is your guarantee?” asked 
Bent, encouraged both by the way his words had 
been received by the girl and his apparent victory. 
“And by what right do you thus take charge of her?” 

“Aye, aye! The lad is pointed, though somewhat 
heady!” broke in the squire. “Have ye aught to 
prove yerself?” 


The Protest. 


65 


“Little enough, I fear me!” answered Marcy. 
“And for that, I will take all consequences. As for 
my vouching for Mistress Wain,*’tis but fair that she 
be allowed to speak for herself in the matter. Hetty, 
is the right mine?” His words were like a caress. 

For an answer the blood leaped to the girl’s face 
and throat, and as quickly receded, leaving her pale 
again. Her large eyes grew larger as she looked at 
the man before her as though to read his soul; then, 

I 

without a word, she bowed her head and left the 
room, from which were heard her steps as she hurried 
up the stairs. 

“I am not denied, at least,” he remarked, quietly, 
though with a new expression to his countenance as 
his glance followed her. “As for myself, perhaps 
these will show; they are but letters from Dr. Warren 
whilst I was in London, and papers relating to the 
death of my mother, wherein we are told of our in- 
heritance. This latter was my business with my 
brother.” 

Bent’s spirits sank dangerously low. With the 
keen eye of a lover he had noticed the light in Marcy’s 
face as well as Hetty’s agitation as she tacitly ac- 
knowledged his right to protect her; but of the 
nature of that right the clerk had no idea. It was 


66 


Mistress Hetty. 


enough for him to mark the stranger’s evident 
power over the girl, and more than enough to see 
the ease with which he was clearing himself from 
suspicion. The hatred the youth bore the minister 
was being rapidly transferred to the brother, and in 
doing this he was very human. The fact that but lit- 
tle notice had been taken of his duplicity the night 
before was small comfort to him. It gave him no 
sense of safety for the future, and in fact he thought 
but little of it, so thoroughly was he aroused by the 
perception of an unknown relation between his love 
and this, to him, total stranger. He was swayed by 
an internal passion, of which nothing was discernible 
in his bearing, and as through a fog he saw the papers 
offered by Marcy pass from hand to hand, and heard 
without heeding the questions and answers given and 
received. A clutch seemed to grip his throat and 
hold him speechless. The sunlight on the floor turned 
to a blood-red patch before his eyes, and he felt an in- 
sane desire to fly at his smiling enemy, who did not 
even deign to notice him. At last he was brought to 
himself by hearing Hetty’s name as the committee 
came to its conclusion. It was the squire’s voice that 
roused him. 

“We will leave Mistress Wain under your guaran- 


The Protest. 


67 


tee for a space, sir, until we can have the sense of 
Deacon Walker on the matter. I have small doubt 
of yer credentials. Come, Master Bent, make good 
yer boast. Neighbors, the morning somewhat wags; 
let us get through the house.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE SECRET OF THE HOUSE. 

Bent drew himself up with the air of a man aroused 
from sleep who suddenly realizes he has a serious 
duty to perform, and there was an ominous setting of 
his teeth as he followed the throng from the kitchen 
to the parlor. From here, without the slightest sys- 
tem, the hunt began, each man taking his own 
direction and searching after his own fashion. In half 
an hour the house had been gone through from cellar 
to attic. Not a cranny had been left unscrutinized. 
Every chest, press and closet that could have held a 
boy was examined. Even the empty cider barrels 
in the cellar were probed through the bungholes, and 
this with as much earnestness as though it had not 
been tried the week before by the same parties. 

Every man had looked up the throat of the great 


The Secret of the House. 


69 


chimney, but the arch of stone which covers its top 
prevented the light from penetrating from above. As 
a last resort the fire was lighted on the parlor hearth, 
and there was an air of the ridiculous in the expectant 
attitudes of those who stood about it as they watched 
to see the rector tumble from this, his last possible 
refuge, fairly smoked out. As the flames grew in 
strength so did the disappointment of the searchers, 
and when finally it was declared that the rector could 
not be beneath the roof of the Glebe house, one by 
one the disgusted farmers dispersed, taking with them 
most of those who still lingered about the dooryard, 
yet leaving within, beside the regular inmates of the 
rectory. Colonel Talbot Marcy and Cyrus Bent. 

This latter individual had searched with more meth- 
od than the others, possibly because he had more at 
stake, and possibly because he felt sure that the Rev- 
erend Challiss had been bestowed so securely that 
ordinary means would fail to find him. The very will- 
ingness of Hetty to have the house gone over proved 
that much, but it nowise abated the young man’s cer- 
tainty that the roof then covering him covered the 
domine also. 

He had seen nothing to lead him to suspect one 
locality more than another, but he had carefully 


70 


Mistress Hetty. 


sounded every floor and the walls of every closet, 
doing his work so slowly and thoughtfully, yet so 
hatefully withal, that by the time he was about to at- 
tack the attic the rest of his fellows had finished their 
tasks and returned to the parlor, where the final act 
of burning out the chimney was in progress. 

The attic seemed a most natural place for a refugee, 
and for that reason Bent thought little of it. He had 
determined to go to it, however, and was about ap- 
proaching the door of the rector’s bedroom, through 
which he had gone most carefully, when he caught 
sight of Hetty standing at the head of the front stair- 
way, listening with the greatest attention to the 
sounds that came from the parlor. So absorbed was 
she that it was plain his presence had not been no- 
ticed, and the clerk, halting like a hound at point, 
watched her a moment with his soul in his eyes. Then 
and there came to him the conviction that the rector 
was hidden somewhere downstairs — the rapt atten- 
tion of the girl to things below assuring him of this 
more than possibility. 

The passionate determination of the youth made 
him clear-headed in one particular at least. He saw 
that a precipitate betrayal of his suspicions would avail 
him nothing at the present time; he saw, too, that the 


The Secret of the House. 71 

fox would finally unearth himself and that he might 
be a witness. Quickly stepping back, he looked about 
him for means of concealment. He fairly reckoned 
that as soon as the searchers left the house his quarry 
would be forthcoming — and not before; in the mean- 
time he himself must disappear. At the end of the 
room and facing a desk or heavy center-table strewn 
with papers and books stood a large clothes-press, the 
doors of which had been left ajar by some searcher a 
few moments before. To this he crept quietly, and, 
crowding himself behind the folds of a black Geneva 
gown, awaited events without the slightest doubt 
as to the success of his move, or the smallest 
stroke of conscience at his unfairness and lack of 
dignity. 

Meanwhile Colonel Talbot Marcy was striding the 
kitchen floor as though a prisoner. The easy good 
nature that had marked his face during the latter por- 
tion of the conversation with the committee had gone, 
and in its stead was a fiery impatience. There being 
no place of possible concealment for the rector in the 
kitchen it had soon been deserted — even the old man 
at the fire having shambled out into the yard, and the 
walker was free to vent his nervous tension without 
witnesses. Now and again he opened the back stairs 


72 


Mistress Hetty. 


door and essayed to go above, but at each attempt 
voices in the upper rooms showed the committee was 
yet unsatisfied, and he withdrew. There was no anger 
in his dark eye — only fierce desire held under control 
— a state more to be dreaded than the former when it 
meets with opposition, and far surpassing mere anger 
in lack of reason. 

Presently the footsteps and voices of the searchers 
centered in the west room or parlor; then after an ap- 
parently interminable time the committee began leav- 
ing by the front door. As the last one passed out 
through the brooding silence that fell upon the house 
the man in the kitchen heard the light footsteps of the 
girl as she ran down the front stairs. In an instant 
he had dashed through the parlor and came upon her 
as she entered the opposite door. Without a word 
he caught her in his arms and kissed her on the lips, 
she struggling to undo his grasp as she turned her 
face from him. 

“Talbot! Talbot!” she ejaculated; “let me go; let 
me go! By what' right ” 

“By what right!” he exclaimed, holding her from 
him, but not freeing her; “by what right? By the 
right of a famishing man! By the right I take! By 
the right you gave me less than an hour agone! Great 



“‘Talbot! Talbot! Let me go.’ “ 


See page 72 


% 




f 





I 


a 




k 



- -fi 

“ »‘r 


» i 





.♦« « 

♦ 


•j' 





1 *^' ’ 


A 


I' 


The Secret of the House. 


73 

God! have I hungered and thirsted for thee for two 
years to be denied now?” 

“By the right of strength alone!” she returned, in- 
terrupting him as by a violent movement she twisted 
from his hold on her. “Hunger — and thirst! And 
have you thought naught of possible starvation for 
another? Am I to be denied all rights? Two years, 
Talbot!” she cried, pointing her finger at him; “two 
years; two deadly years of silence and then you burst 
upon me with a cry of your rights. You suddenly 
appear like one from the dead, and because, and 
when in terror for my liberty and your brother’s life, 
I appealed to you as I would to — to any last resort, 
you take this advantage! Oh, but you are a man!” 

“Two years!” said Marcy, amazedly, stooping to 
bring his eyes to the level of the flashing blue ones be- 
fore him. “I wrote each month for a year, and with- 
out a word in return. Has my worthy brother con- 
verted you to his political creed? Dost love king so 
much that you have none for his enemy? I thought 
so, I swear, until you placed yourself in my hands an 
hour agone, and left the room.” 

“Art not ashamed, sir?” she cried. “What cared I 
for colonies or king when my heart was breaking? 
Two years agone I gave you my promise. You went 


74 


Mistress Hetty. 


away on your mission, and from then until to-day I 
knew no more than that you were alive. Have I suf- 
fered nothing? and must I, on the instant, humble 
myself and submit to you because, forsooth, you so 
desire? You speak of rights; have I none?” 

“And who told you I was alive?” asked the man, in 
a low voice. 

“My god-father, with whom you probably corre- 
sponded without a message to me; that is, for aught 
I know.” 

“Good God! What treason has been played be- 
tween us?” ejaculated Marcy fiercely, as he turned 
and strode across the floor, perplexity and anger tak- 
ing the place of the passion that had flamed in his face 
a moment before. “You know that my priestly 
brother and I were never lovers — and yet, and yet, he 
could not have done this thing. I' wrote him but 
once, I swear. When did you leave Hartford?” 

“Some eight months since.’^ 

“Only that?” he interrupted. 

“But that was far later than intended,” she contin- 
ued. “Talbot, you have the brain of your calling. 
You are a diplomat and would twist facts and fancies 
until ” 


“Hush, Hetty. I begin to see! From the Rever- 


The Secret of the House. 


75 


end Archibald I had an answer bidding me shelter 
myself from the rising wrath of Britain; telling me 
that my errand abroad would but damn myself and 
those about me; also informing me that you were 
again under his care. To this place, to Woodbury, I 
sent my letters to you; not to Hartford. Have they 
been lost or forgotten and are lying pigeon-holed in 
some musty corner awaiting your call? Who holds 
the mail in this village?” 

“1 know not!” she replied, drawing herself to her 
height and following his steps with her eye as he still 
paced the floor. ‘T know not! Oh, Talbot! If you 
be deceiving me — lifting me by a hope propped with 
a lie, in the name of God stop before you do so hid- 
eous a thing. If, indeed, to possess me would be hap- 
piness, look to yoursejf. I will not be played with — 
not even by you.” 

“Played with!” he vociferated, wheeling about. 
“Dost know my nature so little, then? And yet, were 
I lying you would be justified in this. I tell thee, 
Hetty, I would have thee only in the light of truth; 
otherwise would you be but wife in name!” 

She clasped her hands and looked at him, a glorious 
smile trembling on her lips, but ere she could speak 
Marcy^ continued, “And now where is my weak-spirit- 


Mistress Hetty. 


76 

ed brother? Is it not high time for his return? This 
hiding without is but a matter of days; he will be 
finally caught. Yet 1 must see him at once, for there 
is little time to spare before I go.” 

“Go! When do you go?” she gasped, the smile 
vanishing. 

“What boots it when?” he replied, “so that 

“Well?” 

“So that you go with me!” He turned suddenly 
and caught her in his arms again, but not until he had 
seen her sweet face turn crimson, nor was her strug- 
gle for liberty so fierce as to command his respect. 

“But' the letters — the letters, Talbot! I may ap- 
pear weak, but I am — I am very firm!” 

“Aye, thou art adamant, my sweet; but the letters 
— aye, the letters; but his lordship first, then Hetty, 
trust me, I will find those letters or raise the town. 
They cannot all be shipwrecked, nor is there an em- 
bargo on every port. Only if I prove the letters ” 

He hesitated. 

“If you prove the letters! Well ” 

“Then may I buy a pillion for my horse?” 

She turned rosy again. “We will abide by god-dad 
for that,” she answered, quickly, crossing the room. 
“Poor god-dad! He is buried alive, and I had about 





The space was filled by the body of the rector.” See page 78. 








The Secret of the House. 


77 


forgotten him!” She went to the closet and threw 
open the door. “Would you know the secret of the 
Glebe house, and will you swear never to reveal it?” 
she demanded, archly. 

“I will swear to anything your majesty desires,” he 
returned, with a low bow of mock humility. 

“Then unbend your dignity and pull down those 
logs.” 

He did so, leveling the pile she had hurriedly 
thrown up earlier in the day. “Now step to the win- 
dow,” she commanded, “and tell me if any people are 
about.” 

“Aye,” he answered, after an instant. “There be 
three men under the butternut across the road; hob- 
bledehoys, doubtleses, waiting for ploughing weather. 
They look harmless!” 

“Watchers, perhaps — and more than perhaps. I 
fear them not. The hunt is cold for this day at least! 
Come — you wish to see god-dad! Look here!” 

She picked a small fire stick from the floor and 
rapped three times on the rear wall of the small com- 
partment, repeating the blows slowly. In a few sec- 
onds a slight noise was heard — a creaking as though 
from a swollen door being forced, and then, for two 
feet from the floor, the boards at the rear of the closet 


78 


Mistress Hetty. 


suddenly sprung upward and outward, showing a hole 
well-nigh square and large enough to admit a good- 
sized man.* Hetty at once propped the open valve 
with a log, and the space was immediately filled by 
the legs and body of the rector as he backed from his 
hiding place. 


*The minister’s hiding place still exists and is 
shown to visitors. 


CHAPTER X. 

BENT’S DEFEAT. 

Marcy looked on in amazement as the soiled and 
cobwebbed covered refugee emerged into the light, 
but in an instant it was all clear to him. Then he ad- 
vanced, and clapping the blinking man on the shoul- 
der, exclaimed, with a laugh: “I arrest ye, Archi- 
bald Challiss, for high treason to the colonies, as well 
as for lowering the standard of the cloth. Ha! ha! 
My faith! How like the coming in of Caliban!’’ 

The minister scrambled to his feet with the utmost 
alacrity, and turned on the speaker, only to meet the 
smiling face and outstretched hand of his half-brother. 

“Talbot! Is it Talbot? I — I thought you in Eng- 
land!” he faltered without the least cordiality as he 
took his brother’s hand and gave it a .perfunctory 
shake. 


80 


Mistress Hetty. 


“And rightly enough up to eight weeks ago!” 

“And — so you have arrived again in America?” 

“Astounding penetration! Yes — I think I may say 
I have arrived!” rejoined Marcy, the good nature fad- 
ing from his face as from head to foot he slowly con- 
templated the figure of his brother. 

“And you are quite well, we trust?” said the rector, 
shifting uneasily. 

“Are you using the ‘we’ plural or the ‘we’ ecclesias- 
tical? If you are inquiring in behalf of Hetty, she 
already knows of my state. Yes — I am quite well. I 
have nothing to complain of — physically!” 

“That is good; that is well!” replied the rector, on 
whom the sarcasm of his brother’s words appeared to 
be lost. “Yes — yes, Talbot, we are glad to see you! 
Hetty, my dear, I cut but a poor figure and am quite 
famished! Talbot, if you care to go up with me while 
I make myself more presentable I will be glad to talk 
with you! Hetty, hav.e they quite dispersed?” 

“There is little to fear from the committee for the 
rest of this day!” broke in Marcy, “and I will await 
your return; that is, I am going for my horse and we 
will enjoy each other’s society somewhat later. You 
doubtless guess at the nature of the business be- 
tween us.” 


Bent’s Defeat. 


8i 


*‘You refer to my mother’s will?” ventured the rec- 
tor, interrogatively. 

“Our mother’s will might be in better taste; yes, 
that — and matters in general!” 

The rector bowed his head without further remark, 
and, laying his hand on the latch oi the hall door, 
opened it and passed upstairs. 

“Talbot,” said Hetty, reproachfully, as the minis- 
ter’s steps ceased to sound, “I am sorry you do not 
love your brother. It is very strange; he is, and has 
been, so good to me.” 

“By my faith! what think you of his greeting to me? 
Cordiality in extremis. I know I little deserve the 
wealth of affection he has poured on my worthless 
head by being good to you. I am an ingrate and— 
good God! what’s that?” 

The exclamation was drawn from the man by a 
loud cry from the floor above, followed by the crash 
of overturned furniture, which shook the house like 
a small earthquake. One look at the girl’s blanched 
face was enough for Marcy, and without a word he 
turned and bounded up the stairs. The noise of scuf- 
fling, together with mufffed cries, directed him to the 
rector’s room, and he threw open the door to see his 
brother, coatless and unshod, struggling to hold down 


82 


Mistress Hetty. 


the lithe form of Cyrus Bent, who was twisting with 
an energy that made the task a difficult one, even to 
*his powerful adversary. On the floor lay the over- 
turned center-table, the contents of which were scat- 
tered widely about the room, its weight bearing wit- 
ness to the violence that had caused its overthrow. 

As Marcy entered the minister loosened his hold 
on the prostrate man and straightened himself, but on 
the instant his opponent leaped to his feet and, seizing 
the rector by the collar, shouted as well as his panting 
would allow: 

“I have him at last!” Then, indicating Marcy with 
a look, he continued: “If you be a friend of the colo- 
nies, as you stated but shortly ago, I call on you to 
assist me to arrest this man in the name of the com- 
mittee!” 

“Talbot, unfasten this madman?” cried the rector, 
as he vainly tried to tear away the hand that had 
gripped him. “He was hiding in my clothes-press and 
attacked me as I opened it, driving me against the 
desk in his frenzy. He is the clerk at Beacon’s store. 
How he came here and for what purpose I know not! 
I have done the lad no injury, nor do I wish to do it 
now!” 

“Nor have I done you one, 'if you will look at it in 


Bent’s Defeat. 


83 


the right light !” gasped Bent. “I call on you to sur- 
render, sir. Your case is hopeless until you are ac- 
quitted, and this man, your brother, avouches you will 
be! You see, I am more a friend than aught else!” 

“Hiding — ha! I fancy I catch the lay of the land!” 
exclaimed Marcy, as he stepped forward. “This gen- 
tleman and I are old acquaintances He is a leftover 
from the worshipful committee and has the talent of 
blowing warm and cool at once. Drop your hand 
from that collar, sir, else Til 'break your arm!” 

“Instead of doin'g which,” replied Bent, savagely, 
“I ask — I demand your assistance. If you deny me 
’tis but to confess that you are a false man — a double- 
faced villain!” With a sudden lowering of his brow 
Marcy exclaimed, “Thou sneak!” and raising his hand 
he struck the arm which held the rector a violent blow 
just above the elbow. The young man’s grasp in- 
stantly relaxed, his arm dropping limply to his side. 
Seizing the benumbed limb, Marcy bent it backward, 
and catching his victim by the scruff of the neck 
marched the helpless clerk out of the room and down 
the stairs, his protests, now mingled with oaths, being 
no determent to his relentless captor. 

Down past the parlor, in the open door of which 
stood Hetty, her hands convulsively clasped, the 


84 


Mistress Hetty. 


struggling Bent was partly pushed and partly dragged 
to the front entrance. With a sudden movement the 
door was thrown open, and through a final impulse 
from behind the clerk was shot out before the aston- 
ished eyes of three men who were lounging under the 
butternut tree directly opposite. 


CHAPTER XL 

THE DEMON OF REVENGE. 

If iron can find the soul of man it found that of 
Cyrus Bent’s as he picked himself from the muddy 
sward and fully realized the indignity to which he had 
been put, and that, too, under the eyes of his love. To 
him that moment seemed the climax of his existence, 
but, in fact, it was not, the difference being that his 
desperation was born of anger and not of despair. 
With eyes ablaze, and controlled by nothing more 
potent than the white heat of hate fed by pride, he 
ran across the road, and facing the three, who stood 
in mute wonder, shouted in a frenzied tone: ‘T have 
found him! He’s there — the domine — and he was 
helped by his brother! I was beaten by treachery! 
Go back with me — you three or any of you — and help 
me take him before he gets away! Force to force — 


86 


Mistress Hetty. 


force to force!” He paused for breath, his wild eyes 
running from one to the other of his listeners. 

“Faith, I take it ye are a bit stumped an’ have been 
manhandled!” said one of them. “Ye look as though 
ye had found the devil!” 

“Nay, the minister is within the house, I tell you!” 
cried Bent, beside himself with eagerness. 

“Then ye had better be tellin’ th’ squire an’ goin’ 
a bit slow! Goshermity! do ye take us for three fools 
to follow a fourth an’ break into th’ Glebe house? 
How came it ye stayed behind? Jest stand ye on one 
foot a minnit an’ get ye yer wind an’ yer wit! No- 
body’s goin’ to run away right off — not us, anyhow!” 

Thus abjured. Bent gasped out his story disjointed- 
ly enough, and with more or less accuracy as to detail. 
He calmed himself somewhat as he progressed, color- 
ing the story as best suited his already injured self- 
respect and concluding with the, statement that to tell 
the squire would avail nothing, as he had in mind that 
both glory and revenge would be denied him. As he 
proceeded a new interest held his hearers, their heads 
closing together, and at last, after having apparently 
arrived at an understanding, they walked slowly up 
the road, still talking, until on arriving at the store 
Bent left them. 


The Demon of Revenge. 


87 


There was little doing within. Jeptha Beacon 
looked askant, but said nothing as his disheveled clerk 
appeared only to pass through the back office and 
toward his quarters in the garret. The old man smiled 
grimly, doubtless comparing his own tact with his em- 
ploye’s lack of it; for the two precepts on which the 
proprietor of the “holler store” always acted and 
which had been such factors to his success, enabling 
him to die as he had lived — the wealthiest merchant i.i 
Connecticut — were “molasses catches more flies than 
vinegar” and “mind your own business.” 

Bent furbushed himself into shape and returned to 
the store, but the townsfolk on whom he waited that 
day got no more than monosyllables from the always 
taciturn young man. In no way ever popular, he was 
left to chew the bitter cud of reflection, save as at such 
times as his services were necessary — and his present 
thoughts were dangerous companions. Late in the 
day he saw Marcy riding toward the Glebe house on 
his recovered horse, and he set his white teeth into 
his nether lip until it bled. There was an air of impa- 
tience about him as the sun sank low, but this he 
fought against with some success. Three or four 
times during the afternoon he crept to the rum barrel 
and drank a stiff dram, which, beyond giving his black 


88 


Mistress Hetty. 


eyes an additional sparkle, seemed to produce no 
effect upon him. As he was relieved by his fellow 
clerk, shortly after dark, he again repaired to his loft, 
stopping by the way to cut a dozen or more feet of 
small tarred line from one of the great loops of stuff 
that hung from a rafter. This he carried to his room 
and made into a small bundle. As he reached the 
head of the narrow stairs preparatory to descending 
he hesitated a moment, appeared lost in thought, then 
resolutely swung about and returned to his room. 
From a rough chest half-filled with his effects he drew 
out a pistol, tested the flint by snapping, loaded and 
primed it, and, as though afraid of himself, thrust it 
into the waistband of his breeches and hurried out. 
Ten minutes afterward he stood in the old town bury- 
ing-ground under the shadow of a great hemlock 
close against the wall of the Episcopal church, and 
there waited as if by appointment.' 




“ From a rough chest half filled with his 
effects, he drew out a pistol.” See page 88. 




4 : 



t 



t 

4 




« 








f 


I# 








CHAPTER XII. 

THE HALF-BROTHERS. 

Meanwhile, despite the excitement of the morn- 
ing, matters had moved quietly enough in the Glebe 
house, the two brothers seeing but little of each other 
until they came together for the evening meal. The 
quaint kitchen was snug and homelike, for the air had 
turned chilly with the decline of the sun, and now the 
brisk firelight, the only means of illumination since 
the dishes were removed, danced through the apart- 
ment. From the spinning-wheel in its corner to the 
flashing diamond panes of the dresser, from the snowy 
curtains hanging over the windows to the clean, wing- 
swept hearth and swung-back crane, every article 
spoke of the hand of a perfect housekeeper. Hetty 
had retired to the parlor, from which, anon, came the 
sound of the harpsichord as she sat and improvised 
in the desolate room. She had been strangely silent 


90 Mistress Hetty. 

since noon. In the wood closet the valve was lifted 
ready for the minister at the first alarm. By the 
kitchen fire sat the deaf paralytic mumbling his pipe, 
gazing, as he had been most of the day, at the curling 
smoke, while on opposite sides of the kitchen table 
sat the two brothers. 

Close together, the likeness they bore each other 
was not so strong as when apart, and yet the differ- 
ence lay more in expression than in feature. The 
rector, pale and haughty, had the appearance and 
bearing of the born aristocrat, while the younger man, 
not behind his brother in either form or feature, 
showed mobility of countenance and an eye by far 
less calculating. Indeed, as he sat and scanned the 
minister by the jumping light of the fire, there was a 
look which might have been taken for amusement — 
an expression never seen on the face of the Rev. 
Archibald Challiss. 

“And you, as a sane man, still persist in sticking to 
an empty form! Others have altered the ritual; why 
do you remain stubborn at your own risk?” 

Thus spoke Marcy in return to some remark that 
had been made by the rector. 

“It is of small moment to me how others may in- 
terpret their duty,” was the answer. “I would be 


The Half-Brothers. 


91 


unworthy of my cloth were I to back from the posi- 
tion I have chosen. I act on principle. When I 
took the oath of office in England I swore to uphold 
the ritual as it exists. It is not for me to break faith. 
You cannot understand this thing.” 

“Faith, I cannot! Indeed, I fail to understand how 
a man can be pig-headed over a matter that involves 
nothing, when by his stubbornness he risks his own 
liberty if not that of others. Have you thought of 
Hetty?” 

“I have thought well of my god-daughter. She 
must pass under the rod!” answered the minister, 
wearily. 

“She wellnigh passed under it this morning,” re- 
plied Marcy, slightly raising his voice; “and had it 
not been for me there is strong likelihood that you 
yourself would now be starving in yonder hole, for I 
doubt me that you could have opened the valve while 
it was backed by a mass of logs.” 

“I have to thank you for it, Talbot; and yet — and 
yet it goes hard to think that we were rescued by 
one whose interests are traitorous. Regarding my 
danger from starvation, let me correct you. You 
know of my hiding-place, but you do not know that 
it communicates directly with the cellar by the mere 


92 Mistress Hetty. 

removal of a board. From it I could also reach the 
floor above and come down the back stairs to the 
cellar, and so out of doors. This latter egress, how- 
ever, is of little use when the house is full of prying 
men, and I have closed the upper opening. Still, we 
are under obligations to you — both Hetty and I.” 

‘Tn faith! Then you have ingress and egress by 
way of your hole to all parts of the house, and as 
freely as the rats!” 

“Precisely; but the valve is by far the most con- 
venient way.” 

“And have you thought of the end?” 

“I have nothing to fear. It is you who should 
walk in constant dread. I do not comprehend how 
you can range yourself with this movement against 
your king. It is upon that subject I wish to speak, 
now that we have settled regarding the legal papers. 
Will you listen? What class do you represent? The 
lowest in the colonies — the peasantry of America — 
the canaille! They begin by rebelling; it may end 
in abortive revolution — abortive for the reason that 
the cause is unjust — more, ungodly, for they threaten 
to raise their hands against the rule of an anointed 
king! And what do you expect to accomplish? 
Where get a foothold? Does not General Gage hold 


The Half-Brothers. 


93 


Boston? Is he in danger save from mob violence? 
Where are your forces? Where your system? It is 
all wickedness — wickedness and madness! For, with 
a regiment of infantry the country could be swept 
from Massachusetts Bay to the Hudson without the 
loss of a man, so terrorized would be your so-called 
patriots! Have you no political foresight? Can you 
not see that the patience of England is about at an 
end? Her armies will overrun the colonies, killing 
or imprisoning every rebel who denies the righteous 
authority of George the Third. And it were a well- 
deserved punishment! Shield yourself, Talbot, for 
when that day comes even I cannot save you from 
the result of your folly!” 

The minister had grown earnest. Marcy listened to 
this exposition of Toryism with a curl to his lip 
that was not hidden by his small moustache. With 
a palpable sneer in both voice and manner, he re- 
torted: 

“Oh, thou worthy exponent of the Prince of Peace! 
You prated for principle a moment since, but now 
you cry for policy! Would you have me be false to 
myself? And are you so blind as not to see system 
all about you? What of the committee that has been 
hounding you, the counterpart of which is in every 


94 


Mistress Hetty. 


town? What of the League? What of the ten thou- 
sand men now being enrolled by a weak Congress? 
Moreover, the king’s authority is everywhere denied. 
To America he is but king by name. You are in 
error, my dear brother, and your greatest error is in 
thinking that a revolution started by the peasantry of 
a land — your so-called canaille — is ever — is ever un- 
righteous. It is a call for justice — for natural liberty 
— a protest against wrong! Are they the devil’s 
factors? This land belongs to those who work it — 
not to England. Its fruits should be owned by the 
toiler, not taxed into the pockets of another; and it 
is this principle, born naked into the world as long 
ago as when the barbarians turned upon Rome — this 
principle which has now attained its youth and will 
grow to a giant’s strength, which will sweeten the 
ages to come. We may fail; but you cannot force a 
truth to be a lie, batter it as you will! We may fail; ' 
but martyrs have marked the track of progress since 
the days of Adam! The cause of liberty, national or 
individual, will never die! Nay, nay, my worthy, 
brother — you waste yourself on me! We are worlds 
apart, and, for God’s sake, let us eschew politics! I 
have something in hand more to my tas^.” 

The minister showed his white teeth in a depreca- 


The Half-Brothers. 


95 

tory smile as he listened; but he assumed his old ex- 
pression as he said: 

“Well, what next, Talbot? Is the matter as easily 
pricked as the last could be?” 

“It is about Hetty!” answered Marcy, with des- 
perate firmness, folding his arms and planting them 
on the table as he looked fixedly at his brother. 

“What of her?” asked the rector, shifting his eye. 

“You are in danger, sir — that of her, since she is 
under your roof! I made light enough of the mat- 
ter, perhaps; but the young man whom I put out of 
this house was right. He is both coward and sneak, 
but he was right in effect. You should surrender to 
the authorities; it is your safety! The committee 
would be helpless in the face of mob violence, and 
from now on your house is in growing danger from 
that source. I cannot allow Hetty to share this risk!” 

“You cannot!” said the rector, sharply, stiffening 
himself. 

“Excuse my abruptness, but time wanes. I will 
not!” 

The rector’s hands clinched involuntarily. “And 
by what right of effrontery do you dictate to me re- 
garding my god-daughter? Do you doubt that Thad- 
deus Wain placed her under my protection?” 


96 


Mistress Hetty. 


“I doubt nothing,” returned the young man, 
warmly; “but as to my right — it is that of an accepted 
lover, as you have long known.” 

“God forbid!” exclaimed the minister, with some- 
thing like anger in his raised voice, as he rose from 
his chair. “And do you wish to make me believe that 
my god-daughter is so lost to shame that she will 
renew relations with the man who deserted her and 
gave neither word nor sign for two years? You, 
who ” 

“Stop, sir!” cried Marcy, his face flushing a deep 
red in the firelight as he sprang to his feet and held 
up a warning hand. “You are a minister of the 
gospel. God grant I am not saving you from self- 
stultification! Look at these!” he almost groaned, 
as he threw a packet of letters on the table. “Hetty 
found these while rearranging your overturned desk 
this morning! Archibald, deny nothing — admit 
nothing! I will give you the benefit of a possible 
doubt. Only this much more — for the subject de- 
mands brevity — your god-daughter Hetty and I de- 
sire to marry at once. You may gather something of 
the sweetness of her nature when I tell you that even 
now she would have you perform the ceremony. I 
have but three days to spare, at most.” 


The Half-Brothers. 


97 


The rector fell back a pace, and remained in a fixed 
attitude as though unable to absorb the full import 
of his brother’s words. His fingers worked con- 
vulsively for a moment; then, without answering, he 
bent forward and seized the packet, stripped it of 
the bit of string that held the letters together, and 
bent low to the firelight that the writing might be 
clear. In the meantime not a movement was made 
by the other occupants of the room, nor was a sound 
heard beyond the snapping of the logs and the rustle 
of the papers turned in the fingers of the stooping 
man. For a moment the music of the harpsichord 
ceased. 

Finally the rector became erect, and, like one weak- 
ened by a blow, spoke hesitatingly: 

“Talbot, God only knows what these^ mean to me — 
you never can. But do not degrade me even by 
thinking that I have a hand in this. They are doubt- 
less your letters to Hetty, but, before my Maker, I 
knew nothing of their existence in my house or else- 
where. I swear I ” 

“How came they in your possession?” demanded 
the younger man, coldly. 

' “That is the least of it— the plainest of it, to me!” 
the rector returned, with the air of a man who simply 


98 


Mistress Hetty. 


explained a fact regardless of its being believed or 
disbelieved. “Hetty remained in Hartford to com- 
plete her studies. I came to Woodbury to preach 
once in two weeks, then returned to her. There were 
many matters demanding attention. Thaddeus stayed 
here; the Glebe house was being repaired. It is all 
plain to me. These — these letters were collected by 
him and forgotten — just placed in the desk against 
our home coming — and forgotten. God help me! 
My brother, I know of na other way this could hav3 
happened!” 

He spoke with a tremble in his voice — the articula 
tion of a nerveless man or that of a strong one suffer 
ing from shock. Taking the letters loosely in his 
hands, he approached the smoker by the fire, and, 
placing them upon the shiny leather knee of the 
paralytic, asked coaxingly: “Thaddeus, do you re- 
member these?” 

The invalid took his pipe from his mouth, turned 
the letters over and over in his hands, and, casting 
a flat and bleary eye on the minister, answered: 

“Aye, aye, Archibald; aye, aye! I e’en gave ’em to 
Hetty — gave ’em to Hetty years ago!” 

The drooping lips had barely completed the halting 
sentence ere Talbot Marcy uttered an exclamation. 


The Half-Brothers. 


99 


ran around the table, and presented his outstretched 
hands to his brother. In his generous nature the re- 
vulsion of feeling was total. At that moment the 
minister might have made a lifelong friend of this 
impetuous and demonstrative young man, but the 
chance passed. There was a ring of genuine joy to 
Marcy’s voice as he said: “Archie, I have sinned 
against you, though in thought only! We were never 
so close as at this moment! Will you forgive me?” 

The hands stretched out were not refused, but the 
chilly nature of the minister was shown in the way he 
placed his own in the warm palms that covered them. 
He withdrew them at once without a word in reply; 
then, turning, he walked slowly and unsteadily to the 
outside door as though stricken with palsy. 

His brother watched him a moment, quizzically. 
The slight hardening of heart at what was almost a 
rebuff to his late affectionate demonstration made him 
blind to the evident distress of the minister, and as the 
rector opened the door and passed into the outer air 
the younger man gathered up the letters, and, with 
a grim smile, turned to the parlor, from which was 
still heard the faint, sweet tinkle of the harpsichord. 


LofC. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GLEBE HOUSE YARD. 

It was plain that the Rev. Archibald Challiss had 
received a blow of some sort, but it was equally plain 
that his was not the nature to expose pain, be it men- 
tal or physical, to a witness. The slight sign of bodily 
distress he had exhibited before his brother passed 
from him, and in its stead was that of clear soul 
suffering. He stepped ten paces from the door and 
stood still. He raised his hand to his uncovered head, 
his face upturned to the sky, still wonderful for its 
unseasonable tenderness. The gloom of the night 
was about him, and, save for the roar of the river, now 
plainly to be heard through the windless air, there 
was not a sound to mar the quiet. 

In this position he remained for a moment; then 
he brought the fist of his right hand into the palm of 
his left with a force denoting both bodily strength 


The Glebe House Yard. loi 

and mental pain, if not hopelessness; and, with the 
movement, he groaned aloud as a prelude to his half- 
whispered words: 

“My God! my God! Must the loser still be the 
giver? Is it the law — Thy law immutable?” 

That was all; but it was enough to lay bare the 
canker that had killed the rector’s happiness. Had 
Cyrus Bent read himself and his interests as well as 
he had read the heart of the minister, he would have 
escaped being broken on the wheel of hopeless love. 

It is doubtful that, for the time, the divine realized 
where he was. He had only been conscious that the 
house had suddenly become as hot as a furnace, and 
that his brother had flayed him alive and with a smil- 
ing face. He felt some comfort from the coolness 
of the damp air, but his senses were not acute at that 
moment, else he might have remarked the shadows 
of four men crouched on the inside of the rough wall 
bounding the east of the Glebe house home lot. If 
the rector saw anything it was only the deep and 
star-spangled sky above him, across which danced like 
a faint meteor the face of Hetty Wain. He certainly 
had no eyes for the shadows which were stealthily 
gliding to within striking distance, nor had he a con- 
ception of what a godsend his movement of leaving 


102 


Mistress Hetty. 


the house had been to the would-be kidnappers who 
had determined to take him this night-^one for a 
settlement of wrongs both real and fancied, the others 
for glory and a few slivers of silver and the love of 
an adventure from which no possible harm could 
come to them. A devil lurked in the heart of Cyrus 
Bent; the breasts of the others, according to the 
human standard, were clear of guile. There might 
be a struggle — they had anticipated as much — but 
what would even the powerful be in the brawny arms 
of the trio who were just then taking orders from 
Cyrus Bent? Nothing! And the scrimmage would 
be a fine thing to boast about in the bar of the Ora- 
naug Inn. 

The agony, the exquisite suffering, expressed by 
the rector during these few moments could not and 
did not endure. It was followed by self-accusations 
and masterful determination through which ran a 
current of pain. Then followed the most impassioned 
prayer that had ever risen from his heart. 

While he was thus adjusting an armor of fortitude, 
and while, second by second, danger was approaching 
his person, Talbot Marcy was with Hetty in the par- 
lor. To these two souls the last cloud appeared to 
have been removed — especially to the maiden, whose 


The Glebe House Yard. 


103 


faith in her god-father had received such a rude shock. 
It was all clear now. The picture she was drawing 
was rosy enough. With her lover, true at last, by 
her side; with her god-father, true at last, to make and 
bless the union; with the end of two years of suffer- 
ing; with a future brightened by the mystery which 
youth gives it, what more could she wish? There 
was not a blemish to mar the outlook. 

Her thoughts were interrupted and her picture ob- 
literated by the loud cry of “Help! Talbot — help!” 
that shot through the still night as plainly as the 
report of a gun, so clear, so trumpetlike in its in- 
tensity that the cry even penetrated the silence that 
muffled the ears of the paralytic, causing him to lay 
his pipe carefully on the floor and gather himself for 
rising just as Marcy, followed by Hetty, tore out of 
the west room on their way to the kitchen door. 

Both the young man and the maiden had in- 
stinctively fathomed the significance of the cry, so 
that it was no surprise to either when they beheld a 
swaying group of men tottering over the turf ‘of the 
yard. 

With an oath, Marcy sprang into the fray just as 
old Thaddeus Wain appeared in the doorway bearing 
a flaming brand which he had pulled from the hearth. 


104 


Mistress Hetty. 


and in its light, uncertain and fitful as it was, to the 
young man the whole matter was explained. 

The rector was a muscular Christian, and at the 
outset had done for one of the enemy, who lay on 
the damp sod leaning on his elbow, completely dazed 
by the blow he had received from the ready fist of 
the churchman. The other two had him beset, and 
about his neck from behind hung the wiry form of 
Bent, whose plain intent was to handicap the rector 
from the rear while his fellows engaged him in front. 
The sight of the clerk’s face was enough for the late 
commissioner for the colonies. The animus of the 
attack and its unofficial character were as plain to him 
as though they had been explained hours before, and 
as ready was his action. 

With a cuff that was stunning, he struck the young 
man who burdened the back of his brother, and as, 
under the influence of the blow. Bent turned to meet 
the unexpected interference, he loosed his hold. 
Marcy seized him by the throat and hurled him away 
as though he was of too little consequence to chastise; 
then he sprang before the rector with a cry, taking 
the brunt of what had now become something of a 
fair fist fight, and urged him toward the house. 

It would possibly have been well had the clergyman 


The Glebe House Yard. 105 

obeyed and retreated to the kitchen, but he was not 
in the mood. The present line of action had been 
forced upon him when his physical being was at a low 
ebb — when his spirits were sunk in deep despair — his 
thoughts and heart far from a dream of violence. 
With the instinct of the purely animal he had thrown 
off the first attack. The swift revolution of thought 
and the tonic effect of strong muscular action lifted 
him like a stimulant. To him there now seemed a 
glory in force, and after his first call for help he fought 
silently and with such vigor that he scarce felt the 
weight of the young man who had fastened to his 
back. With the coming of his brother there came 
to him the ungodly desire for revenge on those who 
had surprised him. He felt that it was but justice — 
not only for the events of the night, but for all that 
he had suffered before — and therefore he refused to 
move from the field until it was cleared. So he 
fought on, yielding not a foot. 

As for Bent, half stunned by the impact of Marcy’s 
blow and driven into frenzy by the dizzy whirl which 
had ended by his being thrown to the ground, he got 
to his knees and pulled himself together just in time 
to see the rector’s opponent pitch backward under a 
well-directed thump, scramble to his feet, and then 


Mistress Hetty. 


io6 

run into the road, where he disappeared in the dark- 
ness. He saw the two brothers now face to face with 
a single man. He saw the tall, thin figure of Thad- 
deus Wain standing in the doorway waving his blaz- 
ing brand and shouting in a cracked voice as he 
marked the progress of the fight. It was gall to the 
clerk — more than gall; for by her father’s side stood 
Hetty, bearing witness to his second defeat by the 
same man on the same day. There was a quick and 
painful snapping in his brain, a sharp sense of hatred 
that suddenly came to him, and was more like a 
tangible thing than like a passion. He recognized 
himself no longer. He had but one desire, and that 
— to rid himself forever from a possible sight of the 
handsome and triumphant face of Talbot Marcy. 
Love, hate, fear and all else sank from his sight. Still 
on his knees, he pulled his pistol from his waistband, 
and, deliberately aiming it at his rival, fired. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A LOST SOUL. 

Although so near his intended victim that the spurt 
of flame from the firearm singed Marcy’s coat-collar, 
the aim of the madman was faulty, and the bullet 
missed its mark. It passed close, however, clipping 
away a lock of the patriot’s hair, and struck the sway- 
ing figure of Thaddeus Wain, who stood in the door- 
way and directly in the rear. There was a shriek 
from Hetty, followed by a groan from the paralytic 
as he dropped his torch and sank down. 

In the almost total darkness that ensued both 
Marcy and the rector sprang to the fallen man, while 
Bent, brought to a sense of the situation by the sound 
and shock of the explosion, and feeling the freedom 
of the moment, slid toward the blackness of the wide 
field which stretched betwixt the house and the river, 
with hardly a thought of what he was doing. The 


io8 


Mistress Hetty. 


madness that had beset him suddenly gave way to 
fear, and as he cleared the fence in the rear of the 
barn he was relieved to find himself in the company 
of a man— the first one to fall in the attack on the 
rector. But the relief was not for long. As the two 
strode over the wet land, neither saying a word. 
Bent’s companion made a detour toward the high- 
road, edging away from his fellow, and from the de- 
sire for human companionship, if not. sympathy, the 
clerk hung to him. They had reached the lift of land 
which, blufflike, marks the edge of the plain, when 
the man turned on Bent almost fiercely, and said: 

“Keep off — keep off, gol darn ye! Do ye think I 
want to hang wi’ ye? Don’t ye foller me no longer — 
ye have blood on ye!” 

The clerk stopped as though struck, while his erst- 
while friend turned and sped into the pitchy night, 
leaving him staring at blankness — and alone. Then, 
for the first time, horror assailed him. The broad, 
black meadow suddenly held the width of an eternity 
of suffering. He was deserted; he had killed in cold 
blood — he had murdered an innocent man! His 
horror for a moment gave way to fear, and he sank 
down on the wet sod to conceal himself, as though 
the blackness of the night was not enough. 


A Lost Soul. 


109 


Not a sound came from the direction of the Glebe 
house, but into his morbid brain crept the thought 
that the very silence boded ill for him — that they were 
preparing for pursuit. As his panting ceased and he 
became aware of the wet that had penetrated his 
clothing from the reeking ground, his ear caught the 
roar of the river, and, rising to his feet, he turned 
his back on the town and walked or ran to the over- 
flowed banks of the Pomperaug. There was some- 
thing companionable in the heavy harmony of the 
rushing water. The minor key in which Nature in- 
variably pitches her chords for a space almost soothed 
him; but memory jerked him back from peace. He 
was a marked man; he would be followed, taken and 
hanged. Fear, horror and revenge drove in turn 
through his brain, each being worse than, yet each 
relieving, the other; and, ere he was aware, he had 
walked into the shallow water that covered the edge 
of the field where the river had left its banks. The 
cold of it startled him, and yet it brought to him the 
first gleam of hope of escape. His tracks, plainly to 
be seen on the boggy sod by daylight, would point 
to the river and disappear therein. A natural suppo- 
sition would be that, shocked at his own act, Cyrus 
Bent had destroyed himself. 


no Mistress Hetty. 

He waded in until he felt the swirl of the current 
against his legs, and then he took his course north- 
ward. Several times he fell, through stepping into 
holes; but by the time he had accomplished a quarter 
of a mile, and was numbed by the cold of the river, 
he struck a rail fence which ran from the road to the 
ford — more a landmark or boundary line than a fence 
proper. As he climbed upon it he realized in a dull 
way that his right hand was troubling him, and so 
self-absorbed had he been that it was some time ere 
he came to his senses and found that his hand still 
held the pistol, and that, too, with a grip which had 
been so tenacious that his fingers ached. 

With a curse he hurled the useless weapon from 
him, only to realize that he had thrown it on land, 
where it might bear witness against him. He groped 
for it long and faithfully, growing more and more 
fearful as the moments sped, and at last he stepped 
on it. It was a fiendish thing to him now, and he 
^ stamped upon it, finally throwing it far into the 
stream. 

Then he suddenly became conscious that the tracks 
made in his search for the pistol would betray him. 
He almost screamed with nervous rage as he saw how 
useless had been all his care. His teeth were chatter- 


A Lost Soul. 


in 


ing with the cold, yet an inward fever began to con- 
sume him. His throat burned; his eyelids were hot, 
but in his limbs he felt the strength of a dozen men. 
With a despairing curse he shook his fist at the sod, 
as he had at the firearm, and ran into the road. 

Cyrus Bent was now but a few hundred feet from 
the scene of the tragedy, but upon the opposite side 
of the Glebe house. He walked along the road in its 
direction, but, finding that there were a number of 
people gathered in the yard, he made a detour to the 
north and came into the road again very near his own 
quarters. In his walk he had formed the plan of 
gaining his room and changing his soaking clothes; 
but as he approached the store he heard voices and 
saw clearly the forms of two or three men about the 
door. He was also marked and hailed by one of 
them, but strode on until well out of sight, then took 
to his heels. The exertion warmed his body some- 
what, and with a quick pace he doubled into the bury- 
ing ground, and, going through its length, came 
again to the Episcopal church, where, some two 
hours ago, he had waited for his fellow-conspirators. 
He tried the church door, but found it fastened; then, 
beginning to shiver again, he crossed the main street, 
now deserted, passed between two dwellings, and 


I 12 


Mistress Hetty. 


struck straight for the wilderness of the Oranaug 
Rocks, which, black, sinister and cold, towered above 
him. 

In half an hour he had reached the shoulder of the 
first great tier of the remarkable geological forma- 
tion, and stood on its highest point.* Still to the 
east of him lay the higher rocks — far enough to ap- 
pear mysterious in the darkness, near enough for him 
to note the ragged sky line made by the black pines. 
Where he now stood the land lay almost open, and 
was without underbrush. The tops of trees growing 
on the terrace below came to the level of this knoll, 
which on three sides drops away precipitously. The 
odor of balsam, a sign of spring, came to the nostrils 
of the refugee, waking memories that seemed to be 
those of another life. 

At this height there was a whisper of wind through 
the pine tops, but the sound, sweet though it is, be- 
came troublesome after a time; it was like approach- 
ing voices. Of his only real danger — that from a 
possible wolf — he gave no thought. He started to 
walk up and down the aisle of trees that crown the 
beautiful spot, not less lovely in this generation than 


*At about the site of Cothren’s tower. 


A Lost Soul. 


113 

in that so long ago. He had a thousand fancies — and 
knew they were fancies, though he feared them. He 
had a horror of himself, and, time after time, held his 
hand close to his face that he might be sure there was 
no blood on it. He smelled it; he rubbed it on his 
rapidly-drying clothes and upon the earth. He knew 
he was going wrong in his head, but cared little for 
that if he could but warm himself outside and be cool 
within. His throat felt as though the hangman’s 
noose had already tightened on it, and at times flashes 
of light appeared before his eyes. Cyrus Bent was 
spiritually, mentally and physically a sick man. 

It was more or less fortunate for him that the night 
was without frost, else he must have perished from 
sheer exposure. As it was, his sufferings were keen 
enough. All that night he tramped up and down, 
with his ear pitched for every unusual sound, with an 
eye abnormal in its watchfulness. Once or twice a 
slight delirium seized him, but he shook it off. Fre- 
quently before him he saw the face of Hetty Wain 
flit by. He tried to seize and detain it, but it would 
vanish, only to reappear later. 

As the dawn broke it discovered the pitiful wreck 
of Cyrus Bent straining his vision over the expansive 
view commanded from the natural platform on which' 


Mistress Hetty. 


114 

he stood. Below him lay the town, still wrapped in 
darkness, but beyond, for mile upon mile, the land 
rose fairly visible in the reflection from the east until 
it met the sky line at the apex of Good Hill. The 
distance beckoned him. Beyond the far ridge there 
must be safety, coolness and rest. He would go 
there; his crime could not fpllow him so far. 

By noon the fever-stricken and guilt-harassed man 
had progressed but a fraction of a mile. He had 
gotten as far as the abrupt lift of earth and rocks on 
which now stands the Masonic lodge, and over its 
secure ramparts feasted his hot eyes on passing hu- 
manity. He was now within two rods of the main 
road, and from his hiding-place he had fairly before 
him both the Glebe house and the store in the hollow. 
He saw groups coming and going between them; the 
life of the town seemed centered about them on that 
day, and he knew (and quailed at the knowledge) that 
it was about him they were talking and wondering — 
and cursing, doubtless. He had no craving for food, 
but he was plagued by intolerable thirst. If he could 
only drink; if he could but get cool, and if the land 

V 

and sky would not swing together in such a sickening 
way, he would be comfortable enough in body. If 
he could get beyond the ridge of the distant hill he 


A Lost Soul. 


115 

would be safe, but he dared not cross the road nor 
take to the highway until dark, and even then he 
doubted his having strength to perform the journey. 
His vigor of the previous night had gone. 

Had the darkness been late in coming the young 
man would have risen and proclaimed himself. His 
sufferings h^ sapped his power of resistance. As 
the dusk settled into obscurity he scrambled from the 
elevation, and, in a straight line, made for the river. 
He must drink. He cared little about being seen 
then. He would take all chances, face all dangers, 
fight to the death for a long draught of pure, cold 
water; and, with unsteady steps, he went down the 
hill to the hollow. It was his adverse fortune to meet 
no one, and Cyrus Bent progressed to his fate un- 
molested, even unseen. 

His road would take him past the store and the 
Glebe house, but he made no detour to avoid either. 
The road was the shortest way to his goal— the river — 
and beyond that lay safety, he thought; so along the 
road he hurried. As he approached the Glebe house 
he marked the light which streamed from the win- 
dows of the west room. A new feeling leaped upon 
him — a fascination first, then a loud inward demand 
thundered at him to again look upon the scene of 


ii6 Mistress Hetty. 

his crime. With the senselessness of a horse dazed 
by fire, he swung from the road, then into it again, 
and finally halted under the butternut tree beneath 
which he had first met the three men who had wit- 
nessed his indignity. Was it but yesterday? It 
seemed years ago! He tried to move on, but his 
limbs refused him. He leaned against the tree and 
riveted his eyes on the light, which, from its steadi- 
ness, he knew came from a number of candles. He 
was in an exposed and dangerous position, and he 
knew it. He was dying from heat and thirst, but he 
felt that he could never get beyond the house until he 
had looked into it once more. It was the call of 
Fate. It was the last straw. 

He tiptoed across the road as though he feared the 
sound of his own steps. By catching the sill with his 
hands and being half supported by the rough founda- 
tions of the house, he silently drew himself up to the 
level of the partly-open window, and looked in. In 
the center of the room stood the minister, clad in a 
white surplice, and in his hand was a prayer-book. 
He was as pale as death. Before him knelt Hetty 
Wain and Talbot Marcy, with joined hands, and by 
their side was the burly body of Squire Strong with 
something akin to a smile on his countenance. 


A Lost Soul. 


117 

Had Cyrus Bent taken the west window instead of 
the one facing the north, he would also have seen the 
figure of Thaddeus Wain seated in an easy chair with 
his arm in a sling; but, as it was, the latter individual 
was beyond the clerk’s vision. The doomed man 
glared at the sight before him as though it were a 
dream he was trying to grasp, digging his nails into 
the wood and his toes into the cracks of the founda- 
tion. He heard the minister’s voice, but the only 
words that came clearly to him were: “Let no 
man put asunder,” and, with a groan of genuine 
agony, he slipped from his slight hold and fell back- 
ward. 

As the sound penetrated to the group the rector 
ceased the service and listened, but, nothing re- 
occurring, he resumed the ceremony which had 
broken the heart of the hopeless man without, and 
was well-nigh breaking his own. 

As for Bent, the sight and sound and fall shocked 
him into reason, banishing his physical suffering for 
the moment. In an instant he was on his feet, and, 
turning, fled on limbs that felt as light as feathers. 
Up and away from the river, through the burying- 
ground once more, and into the main street of the 
village; but now, instead of making for his former 


ii8 Mistress Hetty. 

refuge, he kept straight northward on the old Indian 
trail. 

In something more than a mile from the village the 
road comes to the Sprane River just before that 
stream empties into the Pomperaug. It being a well- 
traveled way, a bridge was thrown across it, and upon 
that ancient wooden structure Cyrus Bent stopped. 
He could go no further. He leaned over the rail and 
panted from weakness. The black water swirled 
away beneath him, its depth and force apparent in the 
flat whirlpools that spun in the starlight. He looked 
at them a moment, raised his head and tried to pene- 
trate the gloom about him, then bent his ear to the 
harmony of the river’s roar. The gloom showed him 
but one picture — the sound was but the voice of the 
rector — “Let no man put asunder!” 

He pulled himself erect, swung his arms aloft, then 
crouched. There was a splash, and the bridge was 
empty. The black river flowed on as ever — as it 
flows to-day. 

********* 

Two days later, and at almost the exact hour in 
which Hetty rode away on a new pillion with Talbot 
Marcy, they found the stranded body of Cyrus Bent. 
He lay where the receding waters had left him, on 


A Lost Soul. 


119 

the meadow in the rear of the Glebe house, at almost 
the very spot where he had first entered the river in 
his hopes of escaping. The history of the old town 
tells how the rector gave himself into the hands of 
the committee, who, far from dealing severely with 
him, only put him on the limits of the town for the 
period of the war. The Glebe house still stands; it 
is still useful — but it has had its day. 


11 


% 









/; 

I 



PATRICE 




PATRICE. 


I. 

Patrice Riley stood at the door of the shanty she 
called home, and, shading her eyes, looked east and 
up the well-marked trail leading to the “State road,” 
the only official thoroughfare from San Antonio to 
the mysterious “great northwest.” The soul of a 
woman, the love and anxiety of a woman, were in her 
nineteen-year-old bosom, and dominated her as she 
stood like an arrow in the doorway. Her dress was 
the poorest of the poor, the faded calico skirt, long 
outgrown, falling but little below her knee, and show- 
ing a limb and ankle turned to perfection. The dry 
air of the climate and the sun had failed to leatherize 
her complexion or give her hair the haylike color and 
crispness common to the native Texan. There was 
a vigor and freshness about her that defied climate, 
and as she threw back a wealth of brown hair with a 


Patrice. 


124 

toss of her head and gathered her fine brows in a mute 
expression of disappointment, there was a petulant 
beauty about her in striking contrast to her dress and 
immediate surroundings. She stepped into the open, 
that her vision might not be crossed by the clamber- 
ing rose vine that covered one side of the cabin and 
hung over the decaying porch, as though it would 
hide the loose boards of the structure. As she turned 
her look westward she marked two horsemen coming 
across the then fenceless country, and, with surprised 
interest, she watched them until they were within a 
hundred yards; then, having a full appreciation of the 
conditions surrounding her, she stepped into the 
house, and, taking’ a Winchester from its slings, re- 
turned to the door. 

It was a lonely spot, with the indefinite boundaries 
of a poor squatter’s ranch. The country spread away 
in a billowy softness of hill and hollow, the higher 
lands capped with a wealth of timber. The insistent 
green of mesquite grass, scattered live oak and forest 
dominated all other color, though the sun glittered 
from a cloudless blue, and the land was strewn with 
the lush growth of flowers that marks the Texas sum- 
mer. Through the gaps in the woods the girl could 
see, here and there, a “bunch” of cattle silhouetted 


Patrice. 


125 

against the sky line, but not a house was within the 
ken of her vision. The late afternoon Gulf wind 
hummed over the lovely prospect and scattered the 
spice of the coast as it passed; but beauty of landscape 
and fragrance of breeze were lost on the maiden as 
she watched the riders. 

As they came up and reined in, one of them ad- 
dressed her with the easy familiarity of the time and 
place. 

“Hullo, Pat, my gal!” 

“Evenin’, Mr. Sherifif.” 

“Where’s Monkey?” 

The girl stepped back into the shade of the door- 
way, and, though she answered the sheriff, her gaze 
was fixed on the officer’s companion, a man of thirty 
years or more, who sat on a great, white horse. The 
maiden’s eyes were wide with a mixture of curiosity 
and something akin to criticism as she replied: 

“Dad went down to San Anton’ with a load of posts 
five days ago. I’ll allow he’ll be back at any time. 
T was looking for him now. He’s late.” 

“Are you not afraid of being left alone, my child?” 
asked the stranger, as he bent down with a look of 
open admiration in his fine eyes. 

“No, I ain’t, and I ain’t alone — and I ain’t your 


126 


Patrice. 


child!” was the quick retort. “1 don’t want nobody’s 
protection. I reckon nobody’ll rope me!” 

The sheriff laughed. 

“No patronizing here, Doc!” Then he turned to 
the girl. ‘T hope you’re well fixed, Pat, an’ Monkey 
will get home all right. I rode around this Way just 
to tell ye ” 

“What?” 

“Bill Crystal’s loose.” 

The pink that had come to the girl’s cheek at the 
stranger’s remark faded, and left her deadly pale as 
she brought her hand to her bosom and leaned for- 
ward. 

“Bill— Crystal— loose!” 

“Aye — pardoned; an’ he’s down to Boerne fillin’ up. 
I heard him swear he’d cut the heart out o’ Monkey, 
Just as his brother has got it in for the judge that sent 
’em up.” 

The girl gasped. 

“Well, what are you settin’ there for? Can’t you 
do somethin’? Ain’t you an officer?” 

“What can I do, Pat? Chris is still jugged, an’ 
Bill ain’t done nothin’ but shoot off his mouth. I can’t 
yank a man for talkin’, an’ besides, this is my last day 
in office. I’ve resigned, an’ am goin’ north to live.” 


Patrice. 


127 

He laughed again. “I don’t know if anything’ll hap- 
pen to Monkey, or if Bill is only Mowin’, but I just 
thought I’d put you an’ Monkey up to him, so you 
won’t have the claim jumped without warnin’. 
Where’s Bob?” 

“Inside,” said the girl. “I ain’t afraid for Bob — 
I ain’t afraid for myself; but if Bill should meet 
dad ” 

Something seemed to catch in her throat, and her 
eyes melted in the tears that welled up but did not 
overflow. There was no response, and in a moment 
she continued: “Bob is all right — ^but you know 
Bob, an’ you know dad. I wish I could be a man 
for about a week!” 

She dashed the back of her hand across her wet 
eyes with an impetuous motion, and at that moment 
there came from within the house a person at the 
sight of whom the man on the white horse showed 
undisguised astonishment. 

He was a youth, and so startlingly like the girl that 
the stranger uttered an exclamation. Save for his 
dress and his shortened hair, the newcomer appeared 
the exact counterpart of the maiden by whose side 
he stopped. The two were evidently brother and 
sister, and twins at that, for in detail of feature and 


128 


Patrice. 


coloring they were as alike as two 'daisies. But in 
the youth there was an indefinable something lack- 
ing. As he greeted the sheriff there seemed to be 
an air of timidity or bashfulness more in keeping with 
the nature' of a woman than a man, and the light 
breath of femininity clung to him and was suggested 
in every movement. Yet there was nothing indicat- 
ing a lack of physical strength. As he leaned against 
the doorpost he appeared to be under the influence 
of deep mental retrospection, and, after his brief 
“Good evenin’,’’ kept his eyes dreamily fixed on the 
girl. It was evident he had heard nothing of the 
conversation, for he made no reference to it, neither 
did he appear in the least interested. 

The sheriff made no further allusion to his errand, 
and, as though he had finished doing what he per- 
haps considered a disagreeable duty, abruptly turned 
his horse and looked at the westering sun. 

“Well, Doc, we can’t help matters. It’s fifteen 
miles to Boerne, an’ it’ll be black sundown afore we 
make it. Let’s be off. My dooty to Monkey, Pat. 
I guess he’ll keep his eyes open. Come on, Doc.” 

The man addressed was so lost in contemplation of 
the two in the doorway that his companion had 
crossed the low creek that ran past the rear of the 


Patrice. 


129 


shanty ere he appeared to gather his wits together. 
He seemed about to speak; but, instead of doing so, 
lifted his hat with an instinct born of his education, 
and, bowing, shook his horse into motion and joined 
the officer. 

The boy turned to his sister. 

“That’s the Yankee doctor down to Boerne fer his 
health. Reg’lar tenderfoot. Looks like he thought a 
heap of himself. Don’t act like he knew much, 
either.” 

The girl looked after the well-proportioned figure 
as the stranger sped up the hill. “I don’t know,” she 
said, half-aloud; then she put her mouth to her 
brother’s ear and raised her voice. ‘T wish dad would 
come,” she cried. “Did he say he would go through 
Boerne either way?” 

“Reckon he will; but he oughter be this side by 
now,” answered the youth in the monotonous cadence 
of the very deaf. The girl made no answer, but with 
a wistful glance after the retreating horseman turned 
into the house. 

The doctor reined in as he reached the sheriff’s side. 

“Who are they?” he asked, abruptly. 

“Monkey Riley’s gal an’ boy — only they ain’t. 
Ever seen Monkey?” 


130 


Patrice. 


‘‘No.” 

“Regular ape-faced Mick; a pore, no-’count squat- 
ter, without a cent outside what he gets haulin’ cedar 
posts to San Antony — an’ that’s mighty little. An 
undersized, meek-spirited runt; that’s what he is. 
Wuthless cuss!” 

“Tough?” 

“Tough? No. He hain’t got no sand.” 

“Are those his children?” 

“No. Ye see, when Monkey — we call him Monkey 
from his mug — when Monkey came to this section, 
sixteen or eighteen years ago, he started to look fer 
the lost San Saba mine — same as some fools are doin’ 
now. He was a sure-enough tenderfoot them days, 
an’ ’twan’t long before he got muddled on the llanos 
an’ went clear out o’ reckonin’ — clean lost an’ most 
crazy. One sundown he hit onto a wagon trail when 
he was nigh desprit, an’ was follerin’ it up when he 
came across them two children, settin’ between the 
wheel tracks. They were both half-starved an’ the 
boy was blubberin’ and nussin’ on his sister’s thumb. 
They couldn’t ha’ been more’n two years old. ’Cord- 
in’ to Monkey, he almost went daft from the joy o’ 
findin’ a human in that frightful waste, an’ he feeds 
them an’ packs them onto his horse. All he could 


Patrice. 


131 

get was from the gal, an’ all she could say was, ‘Ize 
Patrice; him’s Blob’ — Bob, she meant. Well, Mon- 
key hadn’t gone more’n two sights an’ a yelp further 
— perhaps eight miles — when he comes onto a prairie 
schooner that had made the track. It was in ashes. 
Doc, an’ among them ashes Monkey found the bodies 
of two men an’ a woman — scalps clean gone an’ the 
ground covered with empty cartridge shells. They 
had made a fight for it. That settled Monkey. He’d 
heard about Apaches, an’ didn’t want to know any 
more. He lost interest in the San Saba all of a sud- 
den; his duty looked plain an’ he drew a beeline fer 
the east. Lord knows how them children got on the 
track so far away — nobody but the Lord ever will 
know. Funny, wa’n’t it? Boerne was the first place 
he struck after that, an’ he settled down, took up a 
piece, an’ went to nussin’ them babbies. He act’ally 
told me that God 'had shoved them at him, an’ he 
wa’n’t goin’ to kick against His doin’s. Curious 
cuss!” 

“And you call him worthless?” asked the doctor. 

“Well, no — not wuthless. He did good by them. 
The boy ain’t got no spirit — not a bit — never drinks 
nor nothin- — only likes to hang around the hotel an’ 
watch people talk. He’s deafer’n a post; never says 


132 


Patrice. 


anything; just tolerated, that’s all; might as well be a 
chair — or a yaller dog. Pat ought to have been the 
man. She’s brighter’n a milled dollar. Monkey broke 
himself buyin’ books — regular school books — for her; 
an’ it’s a fact that somehow she’s grown up clean — 
like a lily out o’ the mud. She’s got the spunk o’ the 
outfit, an’ she just dotes on Monkey an’ the boy. She’s 
a good gal. I don’t think she was ever in Boerne in 
her life, nor ten miles from the shack since she was a 
kid; but she knows a heap about things — between me 
an’ you, a heap more’n I do.” 

The doctor made no immediate return to this, being 
seemingly lost in thought, but later, as the two were 
walking their horses up a slope, he said: 

“And what about Crystal?” 

“Ever seen him?” asked the sheriff. 

“No.” 

“Well, I’ll bet you will know enough of him if you 
stay here. The trouble between him an’ Monkey is 
about the matter of the killin’ o’ a man — a stranger; 
shootin’ him in the back. Monkey was the only wit- 
ness. Bill would ha’ plugged him, too, just to keep 
him quiet — he’s equal to it — only Monkey is so meek- 
like that Bill thought he daresn’t open his mouth. 
But he did, an’ Bill’s got it in for him, that’s all. Bill’s 


Patrice. 


133 

popular with the boys. He’s a great coward, really; 
but he’s free with likker, an’ when he’s full he’s equal 
to most anything. If there’s going to be trouble I 
ain’t sorry to be out of it — an’ I ain’t sorry I put Mon- 
key on guard, either.” 

Again silence fell between the men, the doctor mak- 
ing no comment, though the glance he flashed at his 
companion was not complimentary in its scornful ex- 
pression and was not seen by the other, for the sudden 
gloom that follows the Texas sunset was over the 
land. 


11 . 

While the two thus made their way toward the dis- 
tant settlement the girl went about her simple duties 
with a heart like lead. An unfulfilled prophecy 
seemed to hang over her, quenching her natural light- 
ness of spirits and causing her steps to drag as though 
from physical exhaustion. For a time the boy looked 
at her dreamily as she moved about the room; then he 
seated himself on the doorsill, his face toward the 
trail, his eyes fixed on the distance. 

The blackness and silence of the moonless night fell 
together. As though each was in fear of what the 
other would say, neither brother nor sister broke the 
spell that appeared to bind them. It was nearly ten 
by the rude clock that stood on the ruder shelf when 
the maiden heard the noise of coming wheels. The 
boy suddenly disappeared. There was something in 


Patrice. 


135 

the character of the well-known sound that caused the 
girl to catch her breath, stand still, and, with her hand 
pressed to her bosom, listen intently. Her foster- 
father never came dragging home in that fashion. 
With trembling hands she lighted the well-guttered 
candle, and, holding it above her head, stepped to the 
door just as the vehicle stopped before it. The 
youth stood by the tailboard motionless, his hands 
outstretched in a gesture of mute horror. The girl 
hurried out. The seat of the wagon was vacant, but 
on the bottom of the crazy structure, with his apelike 
face upturned to the velvet sky. Monkey Riley lay 
dead, the bullet-hole in his forehead proclaiming the 
manner of his taking off. 

With a cry like that of a stricken wild animal, the 
girl pushed her brother aside and leaped in beside the 
prostrate man. Taking the homely head on her lap, 
she kissed it and talked to it, throwing over it the 
wealth of her long hair, as though to hide it from all 
but herself. In an ecstasy of grief she rocked her 
body to and fro as she petted the inanimate form, but 
not a word of either wonder or threat fell from her 
lips. When, finally, she had calmed herself, she was 
as white as the dead man, her beautiful eyes were like 
stones, and she looked about her as though the land 


136 Patrice. 

was strange. The boy was weeping like an abused 
child. 

This tragedy created but little stir in the settlement. 
Violence was too common an occurrence to arouse 
the communal blood. The mystery of Monkey 
Riley’s murder was a passing wonder, and, except by 
a few, the matter was forgotten in less than the pro- 
verbial nine days. If there were guesses at the cause 
of the palpable outrage, such guesses remained un- 
expressed in public; it was courting a similar death 
to accuse a man rightly or wrongly. There was cer- 
tainly no proof against any one, and twenty-five years 
ago the criminal laws of Texas were unadministered 
save when those in high places were struck, or great 
commercial interests endangered, or the offense was 
open and flagrant. 

Strange as it may appear in these days, in the case 
of Monkey Riley nothing was done. He had not 
been a popular character, or one who would be 
missed from the community, and his poverty had been 
too absolute for his memory to command respect. Of 
much more general interest than the murder of the 
obscure Irishman was the news that the recently liber- 
ated convict, Mr. William Crystal, had suddenly dis- 
appeared. 


Patrice. 


137 

To the doctor the information of the death of Riley 
came with peculiar force, though why it did so was 
a puzzle even to himself. He correctly interpreted 
the general silence and lack of interest, and, being 
powerless, shrewdly held his tongue, though at the 
first opportunity he rode out to the ranch for the sole 
purpose (he explained to himself) of offering sym- 
pathy and help to the stricken family. 

The doctor was not a man given to self-deception. 
He frankly admitted that the story of the children 
interested him as things of more importance had 
failed to do, and he was thankful for the fact that it 
had interested him at all. Having been brought low 
through the stunning shock of the loss of his father, 
mother and sister by the sinking of an ocean steam- 
ship, he had gone south as much to escape from mad- 
dening and persistent condolences as to get into new 
scenes and regain his health, which had been shat- 
tered by the blow of his loss. For him the flavor of 
life had gone. Great events, and even self-interest, 
failed to arouse him, and the only thing that had 
saved the man from a deadly and unnatural ennui 
which might have ended in suicide was the practice 
of his profession — a practice carried on through sheer 
scientific enthusiasm alone, he being far beyond the 


Patrice. 


138 

need of pecuniary reward. His sight of the girl — a 
unique figure, even in that unique country — had 
filliped his dead curiosity, and the sheriff’s subsequent 
tale roused his lethargic interest and surprised him by 
so doing. When the news of the murder came to 
him, he was both impressed and mildly elated at the 
fact that within him there woke a sense that somehow 
he was closely connected with the event. It was a 
spark of interest that, as interest, was so new 
and so entirely refreshing that he had hopes for 
himself. It appeared to him that the struggle he 
had made — a struggle to lift himself above the crush- 
ing weight of a sorrow that had paralyzed mental re- 
action — was beginning to bear fruit, and upon this he 
hung a hope which, as hope, was still further a 
stimulus. Therefore, to him the so-called “incident” 
of the shooting of the poor squatter held an interest 
beyond its mere fact; and it was with a definite feeling 
of mildly rising spirits that he rode out to the ranch. 
It had been more than a week since the tragedy. 

He found the girl alone. Save for a sweet serious- 
ness in her face, he marked no change in her appear- 
ance. There was about her a natural courtesy that 
astonished him, inasmuch as he had expected the 
curtness experienced at their previous meeting. Had 


Patrice. 


139 

the maiden been born and bred to the purple she 
could not have held herself with more grace and 
dignity than when, after hearing his words of con- 
dolence, she looked at him steadily, as though weigh- 
ing his sincerity, then invited him into the house and 
gave him the details of the tragedy so far as she knew 
them. Not a word did she drop concerning the pos- 
sible murderer, nor did she threaten, or complain of 
the laxity of the law which had failed to probe the 
outrage. Her unexpected calmness, her entire lack 
of embarrassment, save for the trifle of color that 
came to her face, and which impressed the man as 
apologetic for the poverty of her dress and the rude 
interior of the house, attracted him out of proportion 
to the circumstances. Her mode of expressing her- 
self was a shock to his fastidious and educated ear; 
but so little did it lower her tone or his suddenly 
increased respect for her that ere they had talked 
five minutes the doctor felt how utterly impossible 
it would be for him — a stranger^ — to offer her pecu- 
niary help without insulting her. His most delicately 
put questions concerning her needs were met with 
a little look of wonder, and turned aside in a manner 
that showed him she did not consider the affair as 
his. She was not overcome by his presence. There 


Patrice. 


140 

was no hesitation to the easy flow of her words, 
though her expression outraged all the laws of syn- 
tax. 

“Have you no friends?” finally asked the doctor, 
feeling that he was not making much headway. 

She was sitting on a stool by the puncheon table, 
her small feet crossed, her fingers laced together. 
She smiled a trifle wearily, and there was a weariness 
in her voice as she answered: 

“Friends? None, I reckon. Lots of folks has 
been here, an’ they look around an’ allow they’re 
sorry for dad.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. 
“That’s all. I reckon they just thank God they’re 
better off’n me an’ Bob. Dad don’t need pity — now. 
He didn’t get it when he wanted it, an’ I don’t want 
it, an’ I don’t want friends. You don’t understand 
what I mean, an’ I can’t tell.” She threw back her 
heavy hair with a quick and graceful toss of her head. 
“I — I’m afraid that if I had ’em they’d go back on 
me when I needed ’em most, an’ that would hurt 
worse than not havin’ ’em at all. I don’t want to feel 
like Jesus felt when Peter went back on Him.” 

The doctor was a little startled and somewhat im- 
pressed. He arose to go, and held out his hand. 

“Nevertheless, Miss Patrice, I would be your friend 


Patrice. 


141 


— so far as you will allow me,” he said, and his feeling 
was manifest in both voice and manner. The girl 
was touched. Her eyes were still wet as she put her 
hand in his, but she shook her head doubtfully as she 
answered : 

“No, sir. You’re different from anybody I’ve ever 
seen, but you had better not tell me that. You don’t 
know me — much, an’ I don’t want to drag you down.” 

“I fail to understand.” 

She smiled through her tears. 

“Well, you won’t fail — not always. Good-evenin’.” 

There had been no sprightliness to the interview — 
nothing attractive throughout, save the girl’s beauty 
of face and figure, a beauty filling the man’s eye. 
Yet he found, for the nonce, he had completely for- 
gotten himself, and that, too, for the space of a full 
half-hour. 

A few days later he went to the ranch again, at- 
tracted by he knew not what, though he pretended 
he was but passing on his way homeward from a 
distant patient. The maiden saw him coming and 
ran into the house. When, after a short delay, she 
presented herself before him she was clad in a woollen 
dress that fell to her feet, covering them, and her 
brown hair was coiled in a loose knot on top of her 


142 


Patrice. 


head. About her round throat was a cheap white 
rufhe, and in lieu of a brooch a pink rose from the 
vine lay pinned on her bosom. If admiration for 
physical beauty ever shone from a man’s eyes, it did 
from the doctor’s, but the conversation was no more 
satisfactory to him than it had been before; and when 
the young physician rode homeward he carried with 
him a sense of disappointment and rebellion against 
an indefinable something he could not recognize, and 
to which he had hitherto been an utter stranger. 


III. 


Again and again he went to her, cursing his own 
folly even while explaining to himself that he was 
only making an interesting study of a most anoma- 
lous character. It was not long ere he confessed that, 
notwithstanding his ideas of individual superiority, 
the girl was his equal in all but education and wealth; 
that she was a neglected exotic; and also there was 
forced on him the evident fact that such refinement 
of feature, such natural dignity and grace of poise 
and movement could not have originated in common 
stock, or be the outcome of her uncouth social sur- 
roundings. This started him looking for a clue to 
the identity of her parents, but the trail soon led him 
against the dead wall of ignorance. There was not a 
scrap of evidence on which to base a first step. 

As for himself, he seemed to have risen from the 
dead. Life’s flavor had come back to him, and 


Patrice. 


144 

brought a sweetness it never held before — a sweet- 
ness tempered with bitterness. For he was forever 
at war with the unwritten social law of the fitness of 
things. He was perfectly frank with himself at last. 
By the time the Texas summer had waned — a summer 
that brought but little change to the land — he ac- 
knowledged that from the tiny seed of desire had 
sprung the small shoot of affection, and this had 
grown from an insignificant blade to a plant too 
mighty to uproot and whose fruit he dared not at- 
tempt to pluck. He had fallen madly in love with a 
woman who, though mentally and physically his 
equal, was socially in the depths and far beneath him. 
He was a moral coward, and he knew it. 

But he was not the man to permit himself to be for- 
ever torn by such an internal conflict. Betwixt the 
passion that had grown in him, and now dominated 
all else, and a sense of the social degradation from 
which he must take the girl if he wished to possess 
her, he was in a state of continual unrest that at last 
became unbearable. He passed the winter in this 
state, each day being worse than the one before, and 
the early spring found him desperate. Then there 
came a time when, putting aside doubts and fears, and 
with a feeling of emancipation from social bondage, 


Patrice. 145 

the doctor mounted his horse and started for the 
ranch. He had struggled and won. 

It was a glorious day — a day when men look abroad 
and thank God they are living, so gracious was the 
air, so entrancing the prospect of the land. As the 
doctor rode by the tavern in Boerne he saw Bob 
Riley sitting on the steps in the listless attitude which 
was so characteristic. A few chronic loungers were 
gathered on the broad piazza in boisterous confab, 
but the boy sat in utter neglect. His likeness to his 
sister was so startling that in his present mood the 
doctor’s heart leaped. To what a new world would 
he lift the unfortunate when he had the right! He 
was about to ride over and speak to him when he 
was himself accosted by a Mexican, who wished his 
immediate services, and he turned back with his pa- 
tient — a fateful hour, as, had he gone his intended 
way, this tale would scarce be worth its telling. As 
the doctor went in at his own door. Bob Riley got to 
his feet, mounted the miserable brute he called a 
horse, and started homeward, moving in a manner 
that showed an entire lack of interest in life. 

A little later Patrice was standing on the bank of 
the run in the rear of her house, filling the pail she 
had carried to the brook. She drew herself up and 


Patrice. 


146 

let her gaze rove over the bit of ploughed ground 
that stood for the garden, then looked up the trail 
with an expression of disappointed expectancy in her 
eyes. The country about was charming, but not 
more so than the face of the girl. Her petulant 
beauty had gone, and in its place was a settled melan- 
choly that had refined her features, though it had 
not weakened or marred them. Instead of the de- 
fiant compression of the lips, there was a slight droop 
to the corners of her small mouth, and her sweet eyes 
held a far-off, yearning look that is, in a woman, of 
more potency than the flash of mere vivacity. As 
she bent to lift the full pail she became aware of the 
presence of a man, who had stepped from the tangle 
of chaparral beyond the brook, and who now stood 
with but the little stream between them. 

He was a burly individual of about fifty, obese in 
figure, and his coarse face was rendered coarser by 
the gray stubble of a beard three days old; but there 
was nothing forbidding in the smile he gave the girl 
when he saw he was recognized. He was dressed 
much the same as the cowboy of the period, save that 
his immense hat of heavy, white felt was bespangled 
and besilvered after the fashion of the Mexican. 
Over his arm was thrown the bridle of the horse he 


Patrice. 


147 


had led through the thicket, and plainly in evidence 
was the everlasting Winchester hanging in its case 
on the saddle. A heavy quirt, or hip, hung by its 
lash, which was wound around the pommel. The 
person of the man appeared to be unarmed. 

As Patrice caught sight of the ponderous figure 
that halted as she turndd about, the pail dropped from 
her lax fingers; then she stiffened, and her eyes 
widened. 

“Bill Crystal!” 

“Aye, Pat; who did ye think it was?” he said, drop- 
ping the bridle and striding across the water. There 
was no answer, and, approaching the girl, the man 
continued: “I bin watchin’ ye dream fer ten minutes. 
Ye be prettier’n a picter — prettier’n ever. I kem 
up to ” 

“Stay back! Stay away from me!” The girl re- 
coiled a pace. 

“By G — d! Ye be sassier’n ever, too! I thought 
ye’d be different,” he returned, standing where her 
words had halted him. 

“What do you want?” asked the girl, who seemed 
to grow taller as she stood still and measured the fel- 
low with an eye from which all softness had dis- 
appeared. 


148 


Patrice. 


“Want? Why, I reckon I wanter see you. I 
heard as how Monkey was dead, an’ ” 

“You knew he was dead!” broke in the maiden. 

Something like confusion flashed over the face of 
the man, and his small eyes sent out a spark as he 
said: 

“I knew! I bin away! How did I know?” 

“Because you shot him, you skunk!” replied the 
girl, turning as pale as death. 

“By G — d! It’s good fer you you’re only Pat 
Riley, an’ not a man!” returned Crystal, lowering his 
voice, though not disguising the threat in it. “Who 
told ye I shot him?” 

“Who needed to tell me? — you coward! I know 
it! Who else cared for dad — loved him or hated him 
— ’cept me an’ Bob an’ you? Who else but you said 
he’d fix him? Who else wanted to fix him?” 

She looked down on him, magnificent in her hot 
anger. The color that had returned and glowed on 
her cheeks spoke of the depth of her feeling. 

“That ain’t no proof,” was the somewhat easy re- 
turn of the man, as he forced a laugh — a laugh of 
apparent relief. “I allow I didn’t have no love fer 
Monkey. He went back on me. I don’t see why ye 
cut up so about him. Wot sort of a father was he 


Patrice. 


149 

to you two kids, a-keepin’ ye in this hide-out? He 
wa’n’t yer real paw, anyhow. I come to do the right 
thing by ye, if ye’ll let me. I’ll make a leddy of ye. 
I’ll fix ye so’s to knock out all the wimmen around 
these parts — knock ’em puffectly silly! Come, I’m 
on the square now, anyhow. Don’t get cantankerous 
till ye hear me through, Pat.” 

“Go on.” 

“When I was jugged my woman skipped off with 
a greaser an’ ran down Mexico way. Then I thought 
o’ you; I alius thought a mighty lot o’ you, Pat. I 
got a pot o’ money all at once, an’ now I want a 
proper figgerhead fer my place. Ye’ll never ’mount 
to nothin’ here. It’s the best chance ye’ll ever have. 
I’ll treat the boy white, an’ ye can swing the whole 
ranch,” 

“You mean you’ll marry me?” 

Had the man possessed the least discernment he 
would have seen danger in the slightly-quivering body 
of the girl. 

“Wall, I don’t know as I mind if ye insist; but I’m 
afraid it would be no go — with the woman a-livin’. 
Wot’s the difference? Wot do ye say?” 

For an answer the girl looked about her in wild 
hopelessness, the red of her cheek again giving way 


Patrice. 


150 

to the pallor of intense passion. Her hands clinched 
and unclinched, and as her eyes caught sight of 
Crystal’s horse, which had fallen to cropping the mes- 
quite across the creek, -she turned and, with a bound, 
cleared the narrow run and was at the animal’s side. 
With a quick movement she drew the rifle from its 
case on the saddle, and threw up the hammer. 

“What do I say?” she vociferated, her ringing voice 
sounding like a clashing bell. “I say I would wel- 
come hell sooner than a touch of your finger, you 
cur! Oh, you hound! An’ I won’t say no more. 
Get onto this horse, an’ if you’re not out o’ shot in 
half a minute I’ll put a bullet through you, so help 
me God! You loafer! — you coward!” 

The man stood for a moment too astonished to 
move, then his broad face turned red. Like one ac- 
customed to the situation, he threw his hand to his 
hip, but the pistol he had considered as unnecessary 
in his love-making pilgrimage was not in its place. 
As quick as a flash the girl covered the great figure 
with the rifle, and as the man marked her cold eye 
glance along the barrel his pudgy hands went aloft. 

“Hold on, Pat! Ye have the drop on me. I’ll go, 
all right; but it’ll be a sorry day fer you! A nice 
return for a fair offer nine gals out o’ ten would jump 


Patrice. 


151 

at! I know wot’s the matter. I heerd. It’s that 
damned doctor! Put down that iron — I ain’t got 
a gun.” He coupled a vile epithet with his words, 
and moved toward his horse, the girl’s eye following 
him as though she feared treachery. No further 
words passed until Crystal climbed into the saddle, 
his weight making the animal lurch as he hung in the 
stirrup. When settled, he cast a venomous look at 
the girl as he said: 

“I’ll see his water is dammed fer him, the sneakin’ 
tenderfoot!” Then he moved off on a walk which, 
as quickly as hurt pride would allow, gave place to a 
canter. And so he went up the trail. 

The girl stood like a statue, watching him. She 
saw him top the brow of the hill and suddenly rein in, 
blocking the passage of another horseman who ap- 
peared, and whom she instantly recognized as her 
brother. The two were plainly silhouetted against 
the pale blue of the lifted horizon. For a moment 
they seemed to be holding a colloquy, then the big 
man bent quickly toward the other and struck at him. 
The girl could see the thin line of the heavy quirt 
handle as it descended on the boy; she could see the 
arm thrown out to avert the blow. The next instant 
her brother’s saddle was empty, and Crystal had dis- 
appeared over the crest of the upland. 


IV. 

When, in something like an hour later, the doctor 
reached the ranch he found the youth moaning on 
his bed, a deep gash in his scalp, and a terrible con- 
tusion on the arm that had been the ward which had 
saved his life. That no bones had been broken ap- 
peared miraculous, but the young man was low 
through fright and shock. If the attack had failed 
to kill, it was not through lack of purpose. 

The girl moved about like a graven image. Her 
face was set in dumb agony, but there was no out- 
burst, no denunciation; and the doctor received but a 
bare recital of the facts as she had seen them. Of 
Crystal’s call and interview with herself she dropped 
no hint. She appeared to be half dazed, though per- 
fectly calm. 

With professional instinct the physician saw his 
duty, and did it gently and quietly. There was a 


Patrice. 


153 

great tide of indignation swelling within him as he 
worked over the boy — an indignation mingling with 
a greater pity for the woman, and a something else 
that showed him his power of repression had reached 
its limit. He must dare the world — his world; and 
if he had come hither with the hope to temporize still 
further, he now saw how impossible it would be. He 
must take or leave. 

When, after quieting the youth, he drew the girl 
aside, he marked no lifting of the dumb protest in her 
face when he assured her the brother’s hurts were 
superficial in themselves. They stood together on 
the little porch, the roses flinging themselves in the 
wind and scattering perfume. She looked at him 
steadfastly, as a woman looks into the eyes of a man 
she knows well, and she knew him well — now. She 
was perfectly impassive. He approached the subject 
surging within him by saying he would at once lodge 
a complaint against Crystal; but she stopped him with 
a quick, impulsive motion that appeared to arouse 
her. 

“No, no! Not you — not you! Didn’t I tell you 
I wouldn’t drag you down? You must not tell. If 
you did you would have to ” 

“Well?” he said, waiting for the final moment. 


154 


Patrice. 


“You’d have to go. He or his pard would kill you 
if you didn’t leave the place.” 

“Well, and if I did leave?” 

She made no answer, save what he thought he read 
in her sudden paleness and quick upward look; then 
he rushed madly to his fate. Every consideration 
save that of love he flung to the winds. He would 
go if she would go. He would provide for her and 
for her brother. He would educate both; there was 
time — she was young. He would marry her now, 
then, or at any time. He prostrated himself in all 
but body. The passion and truth of the man flashed 
from his eyes; his words fell in a hot torrent of prom- 
ises and proposals interspersed with endearments that 
must have caused the girl exquisite joy, even while 
they cut her to the core. She waited without a word, 
without a look at him, then drew from the embrace 
in which he had caught her and stepped away, her 
face so suddenly changed that he was startled. 

“When a man talks that way he must have an 
answer,” she said, with a semi-deflant movement of 
her head, though her bosom heaved as though she 
needed breath, “and my answer is — no, not now!” 

The doctor’s heart contracted. He swayed a little. 
He had never doubted for an instant. 


Patrice. 


155 


“Not now! Not now!” 

“Not now.” 

“When?” 

“I don’t know. Perhaps never. Oh, for God’s 
sake, go away! Can’t you see you are killing me 
slowly? Don’t come back here ever — till I say you 
may. I will speak when the time comes.” 

“Patrice! Patrice!” he exclaimed, leaping forward 
as he saw the wonderful lovelight in her eyes — a light 
strong beyond hiding. 

She twisted from his attempted embrace, and, with 
a cry, ran out of the room. 

Like one partly stunned, the doctor stood for a 
space and looked at the door through which she had 
fled. He laid his hand on the rude table as though 
needing its support; then, as though moving in his 
sleep, walked out, mounted his horse, and rode away. 

It was six weeks before the boy was seen at the 
tavern again, and the erstwhile black waxy of the 
road had turned to gray powder under the heat of 
the sun and grind of hoofs and wheels. Little atten- 
tion was paid to the youth, although the sling in 
which he carried his left arm evoked a meed of minor 
curiosity. He was soon left untroubled, for, as a per- 
vSon harmless and of little force, he was of no interest. 


Patrice. 


156 

and appeared to hang around the piazza for the sole 
purpose of being near humanity. No one cared how 
he lived. He was wont to ride into town on his old 
horse, sometimes with a string of game, presumably 
brought down with the Winchester he had inherited, 
the game being exchanged for a meal. Little could 
be gotten from him in the way of words, and the 
element hanging about the place treated him with 
plain contempt because of his moody and unsocial 
nature. 

It might have been chance that made Crystal dis- 
appear again immediately after the assault. No one 
dared aver that anything but business was the cause 
of his sudden departure, but perhaps that gentleman 
thought that the local authorities might become in- 
terested in the matter if the boy died, and probe the 
animus of the act. At all events, it was now whis- 
pered that Crystal would be back shortly. None no- 
ticed that when the youth heard the rumor his fair 
face lost a shade of its color, his faultless mouth turned 
a trifle hard. The expected arrival was hailed with 
free expressions of joy by most of the characters mak- 
ing the tavern their headquarters, and on the great 
day of his looked-for advent there were a number of 
his ilk assembled to receive him, lounging in tilted- 


Patrice. 


157 

back chairs on the broad piazza and out of reach of 
the blazing sun. 

For it was a fiery day when at last Crystal drove 
up in his dilapidated buggy, the ragged top of which 
seemed to curl in the fierce heat. The man’s great 
body nearly covered the tattered cushion of the seat. 
The crowd rose en masse when he appeared — all save 
Riley’s boy, who sat apart on the floor of the piazza, 
drawing through his fingers the silky ears of a hound 
that had walked up to him. His depression was ex- 
treme. As Crystal was hailed) he waved a fat hand 
to the waiting company, and reined in down the road 
to speak to the blacksmith, who had run from his 
shed, and in the commotion of expectancy no one 
noticed Riley’s boy lift his eyes. 

They did not see him lift his eyes, nor did they see 
the sudden pallor on his face. They only knew that as 
they waited to welcome their popular companion 
there came the report of a rifle from the end of the 
piazza, and Bill Crystal leaped to his feet with a forty- 
four calibre ball in his great abdomen. The boy was 
standing quite still, his Winchester in his hand, smoke 
still oozing from its muzzle and smoke hanging over 
the youth’s fair head. 

The wounded man swayed on the floor of the 


158 Patrice. 

buggy for an instant, then, with the roar of a bull, 
leaped from the vehicle and ran into the blacksmith’s 
shop, where he fell on a heap of cinders, and, grovel- 
ling like the coward he was, cursed, prayed, wept and 
begged for the doctor. 

For a moment no attention was paid to the boy. 
As the crowd left the piazza with a rush and surged 
through the broad door of the shop, the youth walked 
to his horse, mounted it and rode toward the river, 
the few who noticed his act not having the courage 
to thwart a man well armed and evidently desperate. 
He crossed the Sebola, pressing his horse through the 
ford, and so went into the lower town and drew up 
in front of the house of the doctor. 

That gentleman was in no enviable state of mind. 
For six weeks he appeared to have fallen back into his 
old state of lethargy, a fact that caused consternation 
in the broad bosom of his housekeeper. But the doc- 
tor was not lethargic. The old numbness was 
Elysium compared to the feeling now possessing him, 
but he was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve. 
The dead level of an ennui against which he had been 
wont to struggle did not trouble him now. He was 
alive, painfully alive, to the keenness of his agony. 
Hurt pride, fast-falling hopes, desire unsatisfied and 


Patrice. 


159 

suspense make a poor bed for any one. He dared 
not intrude on the woman who, he knew, loved him, 
yet sent him from her. He dared not leave the place, 
though he felt that his mission in Texas had about 
ended; yet he was impelled to fly from this galling 
sweetness as he had once fled from the galling numb- 
ness of grief. He had disobeyed the girl in one thing, 
however. He would not let the brute who was about 
to return to Boerne go unpunished, and at that mo- 
ment there sat in his study the new sheriff, to whom 
he had just finished retailing the facts relative to 
Riley’s death and the subsequent assault on the boy. 
He was willing to brave the consequences of this, and 
waited for the official’s opinion in the matter. The 
opinion was not held back. 

“If Bob Riley had any sand he would kill that 
sucker. It is the best way to get rid of him. There 
ain’t a jury on earth that knows the man but would 
acquit him with a jump. But I tell you if it is just 
a trial- for assault — for the murder can’t be proved — 
you’d better make yourself scarce if you lug your 
name into it. I’ll nip him when he comes if you just 
say so; but so long as he lives after that your hide’s 
not safe from a sudden ventilatin’. You’d better let 
summun else do the business.” 


i6o Patrice. 

The doctor looked at the man. He sat still a mo- 
ment, running his fingers through his hair, then he 
said: 

“You know that I can do nothing, not being the 
one aggrieved. You are an officer of the law. I 
give you your cue; act on it if you dare — it’s your 
business. The girl — the children are afraid; the man 
a menace to society. Don’t try to protect yourself 
by attempting to protect me. Use my name in any 
way you like.” 

The sheriff ejaculated the word “hell” as a preface 
to more; but he was interrupted by a light footfall, 
and in the open door of the shaded room, to all ap- 
pearances, stood one of the subjects of their conversa- 
tion. The officer, being in a distant corner, was not 
seen by the intruder, but the doctor sat where a shaft 
of light from the fiery sky came through the half- 
closed blind and fell on his white face. The figure 
glided into the room and stopped before him. 

“I’ve shot Bill Crystal! I had to! I did it to save 
me an’ Bob an’ — an’ you!” There was a slight 
tremor to the voice as it hesitated, and then broke 
out: “Will you have me now?” 

Before either man could get to his feet the Win- 
chester fell to the floor with a sharp clang, and was 


Patrice. 


i6i 


followed by the speaker, who pitched to the carpet 
unconscious. 

The sheriff stepped to the window and threw wide 
the blind. The doctor stooped beside the fallen 
figure, then arose trembling like a leaf. 

“My God! It’s Patrice!” 

His companion looked down on the prostrate form 
and chewed on the end of his cigar. He was not a 
man easily shaken. 

“Well, I’m eternally cussed! She’s cut the knot, 
an’ the deal’s up to me!” Then he went out. 

It was an hour before the girl regained her senses, 
but when she did she found the doctor sitting by her 
side. One of her hands was imprisoned in his. As 
for him, there was no need for questions. He read 
through the history of the weeks, and now knew the 
mind of the girl as clearly as he knew his own. As 
she came to herself, she looked into his face a little 
wildly, then suddenly drew herself upright on the 
sofa, pulled away her hand, and tried to get to her 
feet. The doctor passed his arm about her. 

“I — I remember now,” she faltered. “I — I didn’t 
mean to faint. Let me go.” 

'‘Where will you go, Patrice?” he asked. “Why 
would you go?” 


1 62 Patrice. 

She swung away from him with a little of her old 
spirit. , 

“You — you ought to know. I — I said something 
when I came in here, an’ you wouldn’t answer me — 
you never answered me.” 

“My poor, brave darling! Did you need an an- 
swer — from me?” he said, and clasped her tightly. 

Then she broke into a storm of sobs. 

The trial of Patrice Riley for shooting and killing 
William Crystal is an old story in Texas. The result 
was an acquittal, and more — it was a clamorous justi- 
fication, an endorsement of her act and spirit, the 
jury not considering it necessary to leave their seats. 
For a time the girl was the heroine of the county, the 
neglect in which she lived giving place to profuse 
offers tending to her future prosperity. But both 
she and her brother suddenly disappeared. As for 
the doctor, it is well known that he left Texas imme- 
diately after the trial. It is also well known that in 
a northern seminary there was a young lady of strik- 
ing beauty and great spirit whom he married on the 
very day of her graduation. 


MR. SIXTY’S MISTAKE 



MR. SIXTY’S MISTAKE 


I. 

Cocky Smith leaned pensively on the single rough 
plank that formed the bar, apparently intensely inter- 
ested in the deep purple of the sky, which reflected its 
hue on the narrow, snowclad valley beneath. A few 
early stars winked in the velvet overhead. The peaks 
to the east were yet broadly flushed by a yellow light, 
the pointed pines showing against the snow, step 
upon step, like lace upon a white pillow. It had 
stopped snowing and cleared at noon, and now the 
valley — narrow for a valley, yet broad for a canyon — 
was covered to the depth of a foot or more, though 
drifts like small buildings blocked the stage route and 
made travel for the time impracticable, if not an im- 
possibility. 

For a wonder Cocky Smith was sober. Had it 
been otherwise, he never would have worn the ab- 
stracted look of a poet or an artist, though his make- 


i66 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


up above his shoulders was not altogether unlike the 
conventional dreamer. A long and glossy black 
beard, a pale, thin, dark face, topped by long and 
glossy black hair, might have deceived the casual 
glance unless it caught the glint of his eye, and then 
one knew that Cocky Smith was no dreamer — in fact, 
no ordinary man. Little was known of him save that 
Smith was not his true name; and, though familiarly 
known as ‘‘Cocky,” a soubriquet derived from the fact 
that his eyes became “cocked,” or crossed, in a degree 
which advanced with his intoxication, when he was 
sober no one looking at him would think of approach- 
ing him with any other title than that of Mr. Smith. 
To-night his eyes were straight and singularly mild. 

His dress was that of all station-men of the day — > 
half cattleman, half hunter or miner, the inevitable 
leather hanger depending from his belt showing the 
protruding butt of a revolver. There was none of 
the slashed finery of the Mexican about him, neither 
did his walk betray the half-stiffened bow legs of an 
habitual horseman. No one around the station knew 
what he had been, all that was certain being that he 
was then the company’s stage station-master, and that 
he had come from a distant mining camp, where he 
had presumably “killed his man.” The last was more 


16; 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

than d. rumor, and Mr. Smith ruled by right of rank 
and prowess the five men detailed by the company to 
protect the stage station and blockhouse of Pleasant 
V alley. 

In their own peculiar ways, all of the men were 
fond of Cocky, and so addressed the master when he 
was half intoxicated — his usual condition; hated and 
feared him when he had been made ferocious by 
deeper potations, and respected him for his plain 
mental superiority while he was sober. 

The civilization of the small community of Pleasant 
Valley was not high. Thirty-five years ago there was 
no house nearer than the next station, fifteen miles 
away; and the half-dozen that protected the interests 
of the stage line in this oasis of the Rocky Mountains 
had been drawn from all parts of the States — drawn 
or drifted thither — each with a history checkered 
enough to make sharp contrasts between the bright- 
ness of a virtuous youth and the blackness of subse- 
quent vice, if not actual crime. 

Once in two days the stage passed the station, go- 
ing east or west, and as often came the “freight,” with 
its dozen spans of mules, the tall, canvas-covered 
leader, swing and trailer winding into the valley en- 
trance with a long stretch of graceful curve that 


i68 Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

presaged the sweep of the railroad which has since 
followed. 

Cocky dropped his eyes from the sky and scanned 
the rocky pass that, like a gate, opened to the outside 
world eastward, and then turned his attention inward. 
The fire in the enormous box stove was sinking, the 
hot embers making a small track of light across the 
rough flooring and on the log walls of the room as 
they shone through the draught holes in the door. 
With something like a sigh, Cocky went to a corner, 
and, selecting an immense log of pine, threw it onto 
the fiery bed, opened the damper, and, lighting the 
single lamp that was fastened to a ceiling beam, dis- 
appeared into the room behind the bar. 

The station-master was in an uncommon mood. 
If his companions could have seen him, there would 
have been furtive nudgings and winks, but no ques- 
tions — Mr. Smith not being a man to be questioned 
on personal matters while very sober or very drunk. 
Once in his room — a barren log apartment, with a 
single bunk built against the rough boles of the wall 
— his air of depression grew with the rapidly-increas- 
ing darkness. Seating himself on the edge of the 
rough bed, he gazed out of the small window for a 
time, then, fumbling through a box which he drew 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


169 


into the field of dim light, pulled out an old news- 
paper wrapped about the photograph of a woman — 
a young woman — a girl, in fact, well dressed, well 
favored in feature, with the ghost of an unretouched 
dimple, and a sweetness yet firmness of mouth and 
chin that would have attracted the second glance of 
the most casual observer. 

For at least a quarter of an hour Cocky looked 
hungrily on the portrait, then, tenderly replacing it 
in the box, opened the paper with the directness of 
one who knew where to find that for which he was 
looking. 

“Five hundred dollars reward for information of 
the whereabouts of William Lewis, of Greene, Che- 
nango County, New York. The above will be paid 
on receipt of satisfactory evidence given to the sherif¥ 
of Chenango County, or to Messrs, Blythe & Hill, 
attorneys, Greene, New York.” 

The paper bore a date five years old. 

The mood which had held Mr. Smith in thrall for 
an hour or more changed as ice changes on a hot 
stove. The depression fell away from him in an in- 
stant. With a curse he flung the paper into the box, 
closed it, and, kicking it beneath the bunk, opened 
the door to the bar just as the men from the stable 


170 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


and blockhouse entered the room. 

It seemed evident that the life of Cocky Smith con- 
tained a romance, and one not possessing the charm 
of novelty. Of the scores of blacklegs infesting the 
great West in those times, at least every other one 
might have looked tenderly on the portrait of some 
woman who had entered their lives in bygone days, 
or cursed at the printed evidence of an old crime. 
In nine cases out of ten the past was irredeemably 
dead. With Cocky Smith it was not ; but when he 
re-entered the bar he was, to all appearances, the 
same sober, distant Mr. Smith that the gang had left 
two hours before. 




’iS. The men entered 
lumping the snow from 
^NOts, and flinging open 
met the warm air 
Wt the now roaring 
^,dull apathy which 
) become satiated 
pong whom they 

ford or event to 

I 

\e stove, then 
^le demijohn 
^ot an atom 

Kty, as he 



LS the 


172 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


slow, spiritless answer, as the demijohn was • 
on the shelf. 

“No freight, consekently no whis 
colder’n hell!” vouchsafed a giant 
room; and again silence fell. 

The clock on the wall ticked 
the embers snapped, the 
waved in the draught thr 
many crevices in the b 
sound was the flames 
stovepipe, causing th 
shots. , 

“Tell us a story, ' 
blacksmith, a nar 
beard. “I’m del 
snowed in an’ f ' 
cussed with duj 
out a yarn. / 
in France, ?• 


cornin’.” 



with a m 


By! 


was tl' 


cause' 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 173 

“If Marve should tell the truth it would be about 
desartin’ from th’ Confederacy,” piped in Sixty, with 
a wink at the rest. “Wot was the last war news, hey? 
Wot a pair o’ legs fer runnin’!” 

“You be doggoned, Mr, Sixty!” retorted Marve, 
good naturedly joining in the laugh at his own ex- 
pense, “Bein’ you air not a provo marshal. I’d as lief 
allow it as not; only I never desarted. Co’se I never 
desarted. ’Cause why? ’Cause I was drummed out. 
Say, fellers, pitch outer Sixty fer the truth, an’ I’ll bet 
four bones o’ red eye — when it comes — that you’ll get 
a sweet scented lot o’ information as to what’s the 
best way ter jump jail to prevent bangin’.” 

“Wot if he did, Marve? Wouldn’t you stand by 
him if he was threatened ter be took?” asked Feathers, 
as the laugh died away. 

“Co’se I would — to Sixty; but not to any other man 
fer murder, I reckon. Sixty’s too much fun. I reckon 
’twan’t nothin’ worse nor horse stealin’; was it Sixty?” 

Sixty smiled feebly, and withdrew from the contest. 
Had an outsider thus impugned his honesty and 
standing in society it would have been a serious mat- 
ter, for, though this crestfallen, overgrown child was 
as supple as a wand among his companions, he would 
have resented to the death any insult from a stranger. 


174 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


“I’ll tell you what, boys,” interrupted the black- 
smith, “it’s a d — n good game to play — fer a change 
— this here game o’ truth — only you don’t play it 
right!” 

“As how, then?” queried Bishop. 

“Why, ye pile hands, ye know,” he explained, di- 
rectly ignoring .Sixty and addressing the others; 
“an’ the bottom hand pulls out and puts on the top, 
an’ ye keeps doin’ it till a set signal, when the one 
that’s on the bottom has ter swear by the bones of his 
defunct great-grandmother an’ the Bible — jest as they 
do in court, ye know — that he’ll tell the truth to any 
one question arsked, no matter how deep it cuts; the 
loser ter stand treat. Now, I’ll swear ter gosh I’ll tell 
the truth if it comes ter me, an’ perhaps we’ll find out 
if Sixty be a jail bird or a horse thief, as Mr. Tuttle in- 
sinerated.” 

“I’m blowed ef I’m afeered ! I don’t reckon any on 
us is afeered,” said Tuttle, always ready for the sim- 
plest entertainment or the most foolhardy adventure. 
“Will you come in on it, Mr. Smith? There ain’t 
nothin’ better in'sight!” 

The temerity of Tuttle caused the rest to look tow- 
ard Smith, who had been listening to the coarse bad- 
inage as a schoolmaster listens to the folly of children, 


Mr, Sixty’s Mistake. 


175 


but, to the surprise of the group, he laid his hand on 
the bar with the words: “Come on; only this is to be 
above board, boys. The man who will lie after swear- 
ing on the bones of his great-grandmother deserves 
horsewhipping, and he’ll get it if he’s found out.” 

A dozen rough hands were piled on the plank of the 
bar, the men jostling each other and laughing as they 
entered into the spirit of the, to them, decidedly novel 
game of “Truth.” 

“Wot’s ter be the signal?” asked Feathers, as he 
topped the pile with a hand like a small pillow. 

“Somebody fire a gun!” suggested Bishop, an idea 
at once rejected, as it would be necessary for one 
hand to be withdrawn, besides throwing out the ques- 
tion of chance. 

“Let it be third crack of the stove,” said Smith, and 
the sextet fell into silence as the master withdrew his 
hand from the bottom and placed it on the top. 

The twelve rough paws moved quickly, and the 
pipe gave a decided crack before the sixth man had 
shifted his hand. 

“One!” said Mr. Smith. 

A dead silence, save for the muffled shuffling of 
horny palms. 

“Two!” he marked, ten seconds later, and then 


176 


Mr, Sixty’s Mistake. 


there came a long pause, during which the hands 
fairly flew from the bottom to the top, each man more 
anxious to avoid the penalty of being indebted for 
drinks to the crowd than for any desire to evade the 
pain of telling the truth. 

“Three!” shouted Bishop, as the pipe gave a pro- 
digious crack. The movement stopped instantly. 
Mr. Smith’s hand rested on the counter, held down by 
the pile above it. 

Instead of protesting at his bad luck, the station- 
master seemed relieved. Perhaps this reticent man 
had his weak moments, as we all have, and a partial 
unburdening to the jury before him, a jury predis- 
posed in his favor, might lift, to a slight extent, the 
matter which in his sober moments lay like a load 
upon his soul. Collectively, his rough companions 
made a strange father confessor for a man of his 
stamp, but he knew that each man of them, uncouth, 
uneducated, a mere pariah in society, had a sense of 
justice and a large ability to make allowances as well. 
Yet woe to him who struck the wrong chord while 
appealing to their mercy. 

Mr. Smith emptied his pipe and entered his 
sanctum for a new supply. Instantly five heads drew 
together, and When the master returned Feathers was 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


77 


coughing in the embarrassment of having been se- 
lected spokesman to put the question. 

“Well, lads, what is it to be?” asked Smith, as he 
struck a match on his buckskinned thigh. 

Feathers coughed again and spoke out. “We hain’t 
had long to consider the matter. Cocky — I mean Mr. 
Smith — but we decided that we had best know who ye 
be rightly — where ye comes from an’ how comes yer.” 

The agent’s eyes gave a snap inward, but they im- 
mediately became clear and mild as he gazed at the 
speaker. Slowly walking behind the bar, his usual 
position, he rested his elbows on the plank, and said: 

“There was no bargain for three questions, my 
man. I’ll not lie, but you’ll not get either my name 
or where I am originally from. The truth of what 
brought me here you may have, if that will be satis- 
factory; in fact, I feel it would do me good to stand 
and deliver, and when I’m through you will all know 
why I withheld the rest.” 

“That’s fair enough,” returned Feathers, appealing 
to the others by a glance which comprehended the 
party; “then let’s have how ye come to drift to this 
bloomin’ hole.” 

“It’s enough to know that I am from the East,” 
began the master, “and that about five years ago, in ' 


178 Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

a fit of drunken madness, I killed a man” 

“I bet he war a skunk and desarved it!” broke in 
Sixty, with a fine show of tactless patronage. 

“Shut up!” came in full chorus from the others, and 
Sixty, again defeated, sank back. 

Mr. Smith took a long breath, not so much in anger 
as relief, and continued, without noticing the inter- 
ruption. But he was no longer the Cocky Smith 
known by his fellows. His gaze became intense and 
fixed beyond his audience, as though he was looking 
at a vision which had appeared on the rough wall of 
the barroom. He spoke more to himself than to the 
group before him. 

“I killed a man, and, though I was to suffer in hell 
for saying it, no man deserved it more.” 

Sixty made an effort to speak, but his better judg- 
ment prevailed. 

“God knows there was neither cold blood nor 
fancied insult,” the master continued. “I was drunk 
— crazy drunk — but the drink only made me callous; 
it was not the cause. Had I been sober I would not 
have done it, and then would have cursed myself for 
weakness. There are some crimes the law cannot 
punish without punishing guilty and innocent alike. 
I killed him! I killed him, and before God Almighty 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


179 


I believe I was only a tool sent to do justice to a low, 
cowardly, lying blackguard, who had almost wrecked 
my life and was trying to wreck my heart with it. 
Damn him, I say!” 

Mr. Smith stopped, lowered his voice, which had 
been raised to a shout, seemed to return to his sur- 
roundings, and then proceeded. 

“I came West, escaping those the law put on my 
track, and took to mining. You know how Watts 
shot at me in the back up at the camp; he paid for 
being fool enough to miss me. The court acquitted 
me, so my hands are clear of him. Well, the stage 
company wanted pluck, and I had half a name for that, 
so here I am. It don’t do for one to blow his own 
horn, but you all see to what a state injustice may 
drive a man; and though I have smashed clean 
through the law, I still defy it to hold me to account 
for that one piece of business. Before I would submit 
I would stand at bay and die; but there is small 
chance for that, my men ; I am dead to them, lads — 
dead. That’s all I I feel better I” 

‘T said he war a skunk!” blurted Sixty, past all re- 
straint. “Say, partner, is there any objections to say- 
in’ who that devil war?” 

The master was walking up and down the limited 


i8o Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

space behind the bar. At the question he raised his 
head, stopped abruptly, and shot out two words: 

“My brother!” 

Then he turned, crossed the floor and entered his 
own room. 

A long, low whistle followed his disappearance. 
For a full minute not a man spoke; then, with almost 
one accord, they went out. To these gentle savages 
it was one thing for a man to kill a man, but for a 
man to kill his own brother was beyond their simple 
comprehension. 

The quarters of the stage gang was in the block- 
house. The building was unheated and terribly cold, 
and, though the hour was early, each one went to his 
bunk, the only remark referring to the late episode 
coming from Tuttle as he tumbled into his narrow 
bed: 

“Cussed fine game — this game o’ Truth. After 
that, lyin’ ’ll seem kinder wholesome like!” 


III. 


Near midnight Cocky came out of his room. He 
could not sleep. As he had said, he felt better. 
Though his guilt had not been abated one jot, there 
was off his mind the awful strain of secrecy, and it 
seemed to him as though a step, small as it had been, 
had advanced him toward light. He replenished the 
fire and went to the front door. The night was ex- 
quisite. The half grown moon had topped the east- 
ern highlands, and its gleam shot off the icy peaks as 
though they were capped with polished steel. Over 
the snow the trees and buildings cast shadows as in- 
tense and black as if in the glare of an electric light. 
The wind had died to a perfect calm; not a cloud 
fleeted the blue, and the tremendous cold made the 
air so dry that he could almost hear the bark on the 
logs of the cabin crack and curl in the fearful temper- 
ature. 

He had stood but a moment in the doorway when 


i 82 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


his ear caught a sharp cry from far down the valley. 
The single sound had barely died away ere it was fol- 
lowed by a series of shouts and whoops that echoed 
faintly along the mountain sides. Cocky’s mind was 
practical, albeit it was impulsive. Without wasting 
time to procure hat or coat, he plunged through the 
snow to the blockhouse, and, throwing open the un- 
fastened door, shouted into the black interior: 

“Up, boys! The Bannocks! The Bannocks!” 

In five minutes every man stood outside with his 
ears strained down the valley. 

“Never heered o’ the Bannocks turnin’ loose in 
dead o’ winter afore,” said Bishop, as a whoop as if 
from the combined lungs of a dozen warriors swelled 
up from below, followed by two or three pistol shots. 

“Friz and’ starved desprit, perhaps,” suggested 
Feathers. 

Mr. Smith was standing apart from the group. As 
the long barking whoops died with the shots a light 
broke on him. He said, suddenly: 

“There are no redskins there, men; I was mis- 
taken ; it’s the stage or freight in distress. Redskins 
never take midwinter for raids, or midnight for at- 
tacks. We have got to see what’s up.” 

Smith had been right in his conjecture. The 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


183 

freight had lost a wheel of the leader, and was stalled 
in an immense drift. The four men attending had 
raised the alarm to attract attention, but it was day- 
light before the wagons and teams had drawn up to 
the station. 

“We’ve got a case o’ freeze out in the swing, 
yonder,” said one of the teamsters, as the train pulled 
up in front of the blockhouse. ' “I almost forgot him. 
The stage didn’t try to get beyond The Dives, but this 
here bloke said he must get on, an’ so we let him in. 
He’s a sure enough tenderfoot, an’ the cold an’ whis- 
key has laid him out.” 

Mr. Smith parted the canvas cover of the swing and 
peered in. On a heap of freight lay a slight man, 
whose features were not discernible in the gloom of 
the early morning, and, giving directions to have the 
half frozen and more than half drunken stranger 
carried to a passenger bunk in the stage room, the 
agent superintended the unloading of the boxes, bales 
and barrels consigned to Pleasant Valley. These con- 
tained supplies for the station, and by the time the re- 
paired freight train had departed Mr. Smith was com- 
fortably intoxicated, and had gone to his bed toward 
noon to make up for lost time. With him had gone 
a two-gallon demijohn, and by night he had made up 


184 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


for lost time; he was drunk, very drunk, and his eyes, 
which the evening before had gazed squarely and even 
kindly upon his companions, now looked like gimlets, 
and each bloodshot ball turned sharply inward. Not 
a soul had seen him since morning, and now, in West- 
ern parlance, Mr, Smith was ‘Very fit.” 

In the stage room the stranger lay looking at the 
slab ceiling, marking the shadows of the coming night 
creep downward. He was very comfortable, and 
hated to move. The ice had been thawed out of him, 
and the effects of liquor dissipated by his long sleep, 
but the way his breath distilled moisture on his beard 
and moustache told him of the frigidity of the outer 
world, so he cuddled into the warm bunk and felt will- 
ing to let time drift. He had decided that haste was 
not always speed. He would wait for the stage due 
the following noon. 

By and by the men came in for supper. Two of 
the freight teamsters had “laid over,” their places 
having been taken by Bishop and Pink, and as the 
five discussed their meal, there was a repetition of the 
tale of the game of Truth, and the information which 
had been drawn from Cocky Smith. 

The single candle in the large room did little more 
than light up the hairy faces surrounding it, for, with 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 185 

the completion of making coffee, the great fire at the 
end of the apartment had died too low to be more 
than a dull red eye in the distance. Therefore, no 
one noticed that in the middle of the conversation the 
stranger had risen on his elbow, and, with his hand to 
his ear, was drinking in every word. The vernacular 
is difficult to the uncultivated, but his acquaintance 
with the ordinary idioms of the West, though short, 
had been sufficient to enable him to winnow out the 
fact that the station-master had come from the east 
five years before, after having killed his own brother 
in the rage of drunken craziness. 

The stranger lay down and breathed hard as the 
story ceased, and the gang shuffled off to the more 
comfortable precincts of the bar and its fresh store of 
whiskey. They had hardly closed the door behind 
them before the sick man was out of his bunk, at- 
tempting to get his legs into his icy boots. He was 
very weak, and had but just succeeded in stamping 
one foot into its place when Sixty re-entered the 
room. Sixty was fairly along in liquor himself, but 
on a nature like his alcohol only increased his sim- 
plicity and garrulity. Childlike and even tempered. 
Sixty, with his high and thin voice, was the butt of the 
station, a fact which, like a child, he resented in spirit, 


i86 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


though not in action, holding only the desire to “get 
even” some day; but how, he had not the wit to 
fathom, and circumstances had as yet given him no 
chance to be distinguished above his fellows. 

Passing to his bunk on some private errand. Sixty 
threw a greeting to the stranger, and then joined him 
that he might give rein to his loosened tongue, feel- 
ing that here was a pair of ears that would listen, and 
here a man who would not dare “sit on him.” But 
he was not prepared for the first words from his hoped 
for audience. 

“Say, my friend, did you hear that story last night?” 

“Wot ef I did?” was the answer. 

“Well, every word of it was true — except one.” 

“Watcher talkin’ about?” asked Sixty. 

“About the story told by Bill Lewis — his name’s 
Lewis, not Smith!” 

Sixty’s small eyes expanded. 

“I knowed it wan’t Smith ; an’ now who be you, an’ 
where is the lie ye air so glib about?” 

“Well, I didn’t mean a lie — only he didn’t kill his 
brother, though he meant to and thought he had; his 
brother’s alive to-day. Pity somebody didn’t kill 
him. Sit down, and I’ll tell you.” 

Sixty gave a sucking noise meant to be a whistle, 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 187 

and concluding it by damning his eyes and seating 
himself on the edge of the bunk. 

“Say, I don’t know you, but I want you to tell 
Lewis, or Smith, to come here quick,” continued the 
stranger, dropping his voice and growing confidential 
in manner. “1 want to see him. He ran away from 
a shadow, and we’ve hunted for him and advertised 
for him until we came to believe he had joined the 
army and was dead. He’s a free man to-day — in the 
law — and pretty well off, too, and I want to be the 
man to tell him. Say, hold on; sit down; help me on 
with this boot; I’m as weak as a cat!” 

During this hurried recital Sixty’s mouth had 
opened proportionately as wide as his eyes; that is, to 
their furthest extent; but, loyal to his superior, he was 
not prepared to accept all that he had heard. A glim- 
mer of suspicion glanced athwart his slow brain, and 
his jaws shut like a trap as he bent forward and glared 
hard at the stranger. 

‘Who in h — 1 be you, anyhow? An’ how do ye 
know that Smith is the man? Air ye meanin’ fair, or 
be ye trumpin’ up some game to git hold o’ him if he 
is Lewis? Drop that boot an’ tell me plain!” 

“Why, man, you don’t think half as much of Bill 
Lewis as I do !” came the ready answer, as the speaker 


i88 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


looked up, as though surprised that a doubt should be 
cast on his statement. ‘‘He was going to marry my 
sister when his brother tried to get between them in 

I 

the dirty way he had — and then that thing happened. 
Bill’s brother always hated him. Say, I’m Sheriff 
Blythe, of Chenango County, New York; elected a 
year ago, and I’m after a chap up in the mines. It 
was a godsend that I got drunk and was frozen out 
last night, and had to lay over. It’ll be the making of 
Lewis — and me, too. Of course, it is possible that I 
am mistaken about the man, but, I take it, there were 
not a lot of men killing their brothers and running 
away at that time, an’ I’ll know him as soon as I put 
eye on him. This thing happened five years ago; 
isn’t that right? Say! Hold on a minute! Where 
are you going?” 

But Sixty had gone. Between the clear and con- 
cise statement, frankly and unhesitatingly given, and 
the matching of the links of evidence, all doubts as to 
the truth of the story had gone with him. Cocky 
Smith was not a murderer. He was a free man — and 
rich, too. Never in his life had Sixty felt so impor- 
tant, and though the stage room, which adjoined the 
blockhouse, was not more than three hundred feet 
from the bar, during the short journey Sixty’s slug- 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


189 


gish brain, aroused to an unusual pitch, had formed a 
plot in the realization of which he would shine as one 
of the lights in a grand, dramatic finale. Here was his 
chance at last. Would not Cocky forever be the friend 
of the man who first carried to his ear the news of his 
luck and immunity from the law? Of course; but 
Sixty would not be fool enough to blurt it out at once. 
Not he. This was a morsel to be worked up to a 
climax. The poor fellow did not use the word “cli- 
max,” but the idea was expressed as he said to him- 
self: “Yer got to knock a man down afore he knows 
how good it is ter stand wp. I’ll jest natchully blast 
the boys till their eyes hang out first ; then I’ll go ter 
work and brighten Cocky up. I reckon I kin do it. 
That other feller have the tellin’ o’ this yarn? Not 
much! It’s lucky I went back an’ heered it!” 

If Sixty had not been so full of self-importance and 
whiskey, or had been possessed of finer mental quali- 
ties, he might have noticed the air of unusual con- 
straint which pervaded his fellows as he entered the 
barroom. It was not because the men were silent; 
that they often were, and for hours together; but be- 
cause of the fact that the attention of each man was 
intently fixed on Cocky Smith, who was in his usual 
quarters; that is, behind the bar. He seemed to be 


190 


Mr. Sixty's Mistake. 


making a critical examination of his countenance in 
a triangular piece of broken mirror nailed against the 
wall, stroking his shining black beard with his right 
hand, while his left held a tin cup half full of whiskey. 
His back was toward the door. 

Certainly this was a great chance for Sixty. Here 
was a quiet audience ready to be waked up; here the 
unconscious hero. Hardly an eye shifted as the 
young old man entered the room and closed the door 
behind him. Advancing to the bar, he brought his 
hardened hand down on the plank with a bang, and 
blurted out: 

“Say, Cocky, or Bill Lewis, o’ the town o’ Chen- 
annygo County, o’ the State o’ New York, there’s 
Sheriff Blythe, or some sich name, o’ your place in 
the stage room, an’ he’s come arter ye — oh ! my God 
Almighty!” 

Mr. Smith had turned around slowly, and Sixty saw 
his face. 

The agent’s eyes were like coals of fire, the small 
pupils seemingly focussed on his nose, now thin and 
contracted. Mr. Smith was crazy drunk. 

Sixty stood like one stricken with death, but only 
for a second, only long enough to see the quick sweep 
of the master’s right hand from his right hip and the 


Mr.' Sixty’s Mistake. 191 

sparkling of metal ; then, with a yell, he dropped to 
the floor in front of the bar in time to avoid the spurt 
of flame and the bullet that buried itself in the oppo- 
site wall. The master replaced his revolver, smiled a 
Satanic smile and quietly drank off the whiskey he still 
held in his left hand. 


IV. 

Five minutes after Sixty was the center of the circle 
that had gathered in the snow a quarter of a mile up 
the valley. He had scrambled to his feet after the as- 
sault, and fled wildly through the deep drifts, where 
he had been followed by the gang as much out of curi- 
osity as fear. None of them was a coward, not even 
the poor butt who was at last the hero of a minute, 
but the suddenness of the affair had staggered them, 
and it was not considered conducive to longevity to 
remain in the society of a crazy man with a gun. If 
Mr. Smith, or Mr. Lewis, or whatever his name might 
be, was going to run amuck they would be prepared 
for him, and it was resolved that the party would arm 
and the stranger be placed on his guard. If left en- 
tirely alone, the master would sleep off his drunk by 
morning, and be amenable to reason. They were not 
aggressive, these men. No harm had yet been done 
and each of them ‘‘knew how it was” himself. 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 193 

J n the bleak stage room the stranger waited, boot 
in hand, for the return of Sixty or the coming of the 
man he so wished to see. The minutes dragged by, 
and no one appeared. It was fearfully cold, and, but 
for the light of the single candle, the darkness was in- 
tense. Once he heard a sound like a shot and some 
loud shouting, but he did not attribute it to its proper 
cause, and afterward the old silence came down like a 
blanket. He would wait no longer. Slowly he got 
into his remaining boot, and felt around for his heavy 
coat, which he finally found, threw it about his shoul- 
ders and sallied out. He saw but one building dis- 
playing light, and to this he went, stumbling along 
the rough, half trodden path. He had no eyes for the 
line of black specks moving over the snow in the dis- 
tance, and with a mind bent only on seeing his old 
friend as soon as possible, he opened the bar door and 
entered. The room was empty. 

With the departure of the gang, Mr. Smith walked 
up and down like a man asleep, only a slight oc- 
casional lurch betraying his condition. Presently he 
went to his room, and, leaving the door slightly ajar, 
seated himself on a log in a manner to command 
through the opening the interior of the bar. Draw- 
ing his revolver he waited, a devilish leer in his eyes 


194 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


and his teeth set like the jaws of a sprung trap. 

He did not wait long. Blythe came into the room 
and stood irresolute. Advancing to the stove, he 
turned toward the partly open door he saw beyond, 
and in a clear and hearty voice said : 

“Is William Lewis, or Smith, inside?” 

His answer was a deafening report, and the Sheriff 
of Chenango spun around as if on a pivot, and fell 
heavily to the floor. 


Late the next day Cocky Smith, or William Lewis, 
came to his senses. His head ached fearfully, and he 
discovered that he had retired with his hat and clothes 
on. He was conscious of having had a series of bad 
dreams, and the cold which had assailed his but partly 
protected body had stiffened him so that he could 
scarcely move. He dragged himself into the outer 
room. The fire was out, and on the floor was a slight 
splash of blood. 

“The boys have been at it,” he murmured. “I 
wonder who was hurt. I must have been very drunk 
not to remember.” 

The master was not yet entirely sober, but his eyes 
were almost straight as he hobbled behind the bar and 
poured out a morning bracer. The stage would be 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 195 

along to-day surely, and he must pull himself to- 
gether. He looked out of the window. The sun, 
which shone from a flawless sky, threw a blinding 
glare on the snow, and by its height showed the hour 
was past noon. As he glanced toward the block- 
house he saw Sixty, Tuttle and Feathers come out of 
the stage room door and advance toward the bar- 
room, and it astonished him somewhat to observe that 
the three carried rifles. He awaited their advent 
wonderingly, for the fact that they were heavily armed 
and had stopped for a whispered consultation when 
within a few feet of the barroom, made him suspect 
that something out of the common was afoot. 

And there was. The sheriff lay in the stage room, 
dying fast. From the moment the day had dawned 
he had been calling for the man who had shot him, 
but not a soul had dared to awaken the murderer and 
deliver the message. By noon it was seen that the 
wounded man could not last long, and a pressure was 
put on Sixty, who had been the cause of the trouble, 
to take all risks. But this he flatly refused to do with- 
out an armed escort; hence the squad which ap- 
proached and at length entered the bar, three sober, 
rough and determined men. 

Sixty advanced, with his companions but a step in 


tg6 Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

the rear. As he saw the master standing in his old 
position behind the bar and marked the change in 
his face, a sigh of relief escaped him and the butt of 
his rifle came to the floor. The slight slant of the 
eyes that met his told him that Mr. Smith was not to 
be feared, and without preface he said : 

“Cocky, he wants ter see yer. He’s agoin’ fast 
an’ says as how he must see yer.” 

“Who?” asked the master, in genuine surprise. 

“Sheriff, somebody o’ some place; it don’t much 
matter what he is, I reckon ; anyhow it’s the feller ye 
shot last night arter ye tried ter pot me. I war an 
ass to break on yer the way I did, but I didn’t know 
ye war beastly paralyzed. It’s tough luck fer all 
around. It’s mighty bad fer you, Cocky — mighty 
bad — ain’t it, boys?” 

Cocky’s eyes looked strangely at the trio before 
him, and with an exclamation his hand fell to his * 
right hip with that peculiar shoulder motion so well 
known to those who “carry a gun.” Instantly he 
was covered by three rifles. 

“Hold hard, men! I understand!” he shouted, as 
he threw up his hands. “Come and take my gun. 
Sixty, I only wished to count the cartridges.” 

Sixty went behind the counter, took the revolver 


Mr. Sixty ‘s Mistake. 197 

from its pouch, threw out the chamber and dis- 
charged two empty shells, which he tossed on the 
bar. “One of them d — n things was fer me!” he 
said, laconically, “an’ ye may find the lead around 
here summers.” 

“By G — d!” exclaimed the master, “I must have 
done some mischief last night. I thought it was a 
dream, but on my oath I know nothing about it. 
Take me to your man.” 

The sheriff lay in the lightest and airiest bunk in 
the room. His eyes were turned to the open door 
through which the sunlight fell in a great square 
that brightened the rafters and gave almost a look 
of cheerfulness to the barren apartment. As the 
shadow of the master darkened the door, the 
wounded stranger made a feeble attempt to raise 
himself, but fell back with a groan, though he 
stretcher out his hand to the man who walked stiffly 
across the floor. 

“You are Bill Lewis!” he said. 

The agent stopped suddenly, bent forward for an 
instant, and then, in almost a whisper, exclamed : 

“Great God above me I It is Harry Blythe I” 

“Aye, Bill — aye. Bill,” was the low reply. “I 
didn’t expect this yet awhile, but it has come. Why 


198 Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 

did it come now? Never mind — only I wanted to 
see you and say I meant no harm to you. I couldn't. 
I had found you by accident — and everything was all 
right. Tom is not dead — you didn’t kill him — and 
— and Lillian found out all about it and her heart 
has been eating itself'away through longing for you, 
Bill, for more than five years. Oh, my God! old 
boy ! Must I die and by your ?” 

The man stopped without finishing the sentence, 
and Lewis seemed carved in stone as he sat on the 
edge of the bunk looking into the face of his old 
friend. Not a word in answer; not a quiver of his 
eyes, and they were straight enough and mild 
enough now. The blow he had received was worse 
to him than the bullet was to Blythe. He had found 
his hell. 

One by one the men had gathered about, but 
there was no noise save the swish of the wind 
through the pines outside and the crackling of the 
fire that had been made in the great cavern at the 
end of the room. After a wait of a minute or two 
Blythe made an effort and continued: 

“I saw how everything was going to be bright, and 
while I was walking up to see you, I thought of the 
letter I would write to Lillian — poor girl — and, Bill 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 199 

— your father — died and you were fixed — and Tom 
went to Europe — and all rough places seemed 
smoothed over — and I was sherifif — and you could 
have gone back with me — and married Lillian. But 
now, Bill, what can you do after — this? Oh, God! 
you poor fellow, what can you do now?” 

He had raised his voice to almost a shout as he 
spoke the last words. As he stopped he lifted him- 
self, or tried to ; sank back, closed his eyes, and thus 
died with his hand in the hand of his murderer, and 
without a word of accusation. 

One after the other the men stole away, but 
William Lewis uttered not a sound. Apparently un- 
moved and certainly unmoving, he continued to sit 
in the same position until the hand within his was 
icy cold and growing stif¥. Then he arose and re- 
turned to the barroom. 

The men had gathered about the stove in which 
they had kindled a fire, and a litter of chips and pine 
needles covered the red spot on the floor. The 
master passed through the group without a word 
and entered his own room. His face was as pale 
as that of the man he had but just left, but it had an 
expression that none of the hands had seen before. 
As Tuttle remarked afterward; “I never seen 


200 


Mr. Sixty’s Mistake. 


Cocky’s mug look so kinder wholesome as it did 
when he slid by us,” 

Within ten minutes after the agent entered his 
room, there came a shot from within. Every man 
about the stove knew its import, yet for some time 
not one of them stirred. When at last they went to 
him they found that he had placed the photograph 
of a woman over his naked breast, and through it he 
had fired the shot which had reached his heart. Out 
in the barroom Sixty sat sobbing like a child. 


THE END. 


For a Lady Brave 

By CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS 


This is a revolutionary tale of unexcep- 
tional strength and interest. The scene is 
laid in Long Island, and tells of the doings 
of those patriots who did their best to sup- 
ply the “sinews of war” the American army 
so much needed. The “ lady brave,” of Mr. 
Hotchkiss’ novel, is as true-to-Iife as she is 
lovable. Her narrow escape from capture 
forms a thrilling chapter of the book, and 
she proves herself well worthy of the man 
who was willing to sacrifice himself for her 
and his country. The best historical novel 
published in years. 

j2mo. Cloth. Finely illustrated. 

Price $T.yo 


STREET & SMITH, Publishers 



The Story of a Fight for a Throne 

D’Artagnan, the 
King Maker . . . 

By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 


Written originally by Dumas as a play, and now for the 
first time novelized and translated into English. 

The Philadelphia Enquirer says : 

“A pretty love story in which the debonair 
cavalier falls victim to Cupi d’s wiles is one 
of the interesting threads running through 
the book.” 

The Chicago Record-Herald says : 

‘‘It is singular that this bit of romance has 
been suffered to remain hidden away for so 
long a' time. D’Artagnan’s manner of 
winning the hermit kingdom contains 
enough thrills to repay a careful reading. 

The story oozes adventure at every chapter.” 

The Brooklyn Eagle says : 

‘‘It is a strong tale brimful of incident 
from the moment when Cardinal Riche ieu 
dispatches the redoubtable D’Artagnan on his 
king-making mission to Portugal.” . . . 

i2mo., Illustrated. Price, $i.oo. 


street and smith , New York and London 



A HERO OF THE SWORD. 


The King s Gallant 

By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 


“The King’s Gallant” is deserving of 
recognition, in that it is not only a noveliza- 
tion of the earliest of Dumas’ plays, but it 
marks a distinct triumph in his career. . . 

If this production is full of the rushing 
vigor of youth, it is because its celebrated 
author was but a youth when he penned it, 
yet it was the stepping stone which led to 
that upward flight wherein he was speedily 
hailed as the “ Wizard of Fiction.” , . . 

It is a volume full of action with a strong 
plot and a truly masterful deliniation of 
character 

i2mo. Cloth. Price, ^i.oo. 


STREET AND SMITH, New York and London 



THE STORY OF A HOPELESS LOVE. 


Tons of Treasure 

By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP. 

<?/■ “Detmoi,d.” 


When two women love one man there is 
usually trouble brewing. Nor is the story 
which Mr, Bishop has to tell an exception. 

His hero is a manly New Yorker, who is 
fired with a zeal to “make good” a defalca- 
tion accredited to his dead father .... 

In quest of gold he visits Mexico and 
there meets a dreamy-eyed maid who 
straightway gives him first place in her 
heart. But an American girl has already 
won his love. It is a pathetic situation and 
if one true woman’s heart breaks before the 
man’s mission is ended who is to blame ? 

There are many touching incidents in the 
book, but none more full of pathos than 
when the woman who loves bares her soul 
to the woman who is loved 

i2mo., Cloth. Price, $i.oo. 


STREET AND SMITH, New York and London 


I 


$ 





W\:' ••' • 

. , . : ' ''^■ 



” ’'• 'v • ■ ■ 

< . i A 





» 4 ‘ 




V,- 




-:v 

•V^ 


. # 


r 

i 


V - 


» • 



« • 


•: ^ 


* 




1 


■ « ■ 


V 




’' I 




y- *• . • -^ r-^l 

' ••T* 

*' 'l^ ■ ‘ * 

» /• ' i .' ► I ' ■ ‘i 

^ 


^■ * 
^ ‘ 


\ • 

> 


*'4 


4»* 


* ' ’"’^** 

.' ■ y, •' . 

^* “ • * ' ' a\^ *: . ' 

>s‘f ' :•' ■• • f > •■ V . ) 

'■'V' '/ ^ ' ■■ '' 


^ "Ji'V-/ : • ■ 


• 4 


— jri'^ •. ■> • 




. .,/ 1 ^. ’^ >■■■:' 

■ ? d 











'• ^ 




• •' .71. . . . ‘ * 


1 ^ 4 

u f' r 


. ■-' *' ' > * ' 



A. .•‘!\<"* 

•y *. : . ^ * / 


W-^»v 








A I irN o 


1 


I A/^/% 


AUG 21 1302 

\ COPY DEL. ■'^0 CAT. DW. 

AUG. 21 1902 

AUG. 25 ]902 




% 


4 . 


f 



t 



% 



! 


i 

f 


i 

4 

J 


f 



I 

i 

si 


4 






4 

y 


j 


t 













